The Apocalypse: The First Year
by hollymarie4
Summary: In a post zombie apocalyptic world, a group of survivors fight to stay alive.
1. The Beginning

We never think that something like this could ever happen.

That everything we've ever known or loved could disappear in a instant.

Leaving no trace of what used to be.

We were foolish to think that we could outrun it.

That we could outsmart it.

That somehow we wouldn't become like them...we were wrong...

–

_Ten Months Ago_

"_Spencer we have to go now!" My brother Glen shouts up the stairs to me. I'm throwing everything I think I will need into a duffel as quickly as I can._

"_I'm coming!" I yell back down to him._

"_Spencer!" I hear my dad shout. I'm moving as fast I can. I grab a few more things and toss them into the bag and run downstairs._

"_Paula!" My dad calls to my mom who is in the kitchen, stuffing as many canned goods into a bag as she can. "We need to leave now." He says in a firm tone._

_'Everyone who is able is being asked to evacuate to the closest army quarantine shelter for assistance.' The newscaster lady says on the television. 'We are asking that anyone who is infected refrain from attempting to enter a quarantine area to prevent further contamination.' She continues._

"_Ready." My mom says coming from the kitchen with a bag full of canned good and other non perishable items._

"_Put your mask on." My dad tells us and we all comply. He gives us one firm head nod before opening the front door._

_My once quiet suburban neighborhood._

_Happy families. Barbeques. Birthday parties._

_This was once my neighborhood._

_Not anymore._

_Now my neighborhood was in chaos._

_People running and screaming. Scrambling to get their loved ones into their cars to evacuate to an army shelter._

_It's been one month since the first death due to the virus and government officials have only just now decided to do something about it._

_Why do we wait until the last possible second instead of taking preventive measures?_

_The government wouldn't give us any details on how or why the virus is here. The only thing we know is what the newscasters tell us, which isn't much._

_Trinity Flares was the first person to contract the virus and die from it within a few hours, a month ago tomorrow. That's all we know._

"_Spencer!" My dad calls to me. I look up and see my entire family has already piled into our Toyota Camry._

_The same car I learned to drive in. That I had my first kiss in. This same car that would take us to safety..._

_I quickly hop in the car and barely inside before my dad is backing out of the driveway._

–

"_There isn't anymore room." The guard at the front gate tells my dad for the third time._

"_You have to let us in." My dad pleads. "I have a fifteen-year-old daughter and a sixteen-year-old son." He tells the man who peeks into the back window at Glen and I._

"_I'm sorry sir. I really am, but you're gonna have to head towards Arizona. That's gonna be your best bet." He tells my father who sighs and drops his head._

"_Thank you." My father tells him sternly, before turning the car around. As we pass the hundreds of cars lined up to get onto the base we were just turned away from, I stare into the cars at the little children and parents who will have to try to drive upstate to get to safety._

"_We're going to Nevada." My dad says softly._

"_But the soldier said to-"_

_"Arizona is too far. We will never make it." He cuts my mom old._

"_Arthur..." She tries, but he shakes his head._

"_I know what's best for our family, Paula." My dad tells her, without taking his eyes off the road._

"_Okay." She nods as my dad turns onto the highway._

–

"Spencer come on we're moving." Jayden tells me.

"Okay." I nod and start to pack up my sleeping bag and other items.

We never say in one place more than a night.

It's too dangerous.

We never know where they are or how many they'll be. We just try to stay alert, because the moment we lose focus someone could get killed.

After I pack up my things I head out of the tent that Jo and Tim immediately start to disassemble.

"Spence." I turn around a see my brother holding out a bowl of corn for me.

"Thank you." I give him a small smile. I quickly eat my food as the rest of the group finishes packing up their gear.

There are ten people in our group total.

Glen and I, Jo and Tim; who are married with a son Francisco, Jayden and her girlfriend Carmen and their daughter Jessica, and Santana and her husband Rick.

We try to travel as light as we can. We never know when we'll need to move again.

Both the kids in the group are ten, so they don't slow us down much.

"We're leaving, baby sis." Glen says to me, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Okay." I nod and stand up from the rock I was sitting on.

"Spence." He stops me as I start to follow the rest of the group through the woods.

"Yeah?" I turn and ask.

"Happy sixteenth birthday." He smiles and kisses my forehead before walking past me to catch up with the group.

I smile and think of my parents and my last birthday. How we were all together...one big happy family.

"I miss you mom and dad." I whisper out and close my eyes.

"Spencer!" I hear Glen yell and I run to catch up with the rest of the group.


	2. Burn 'Em All

Amazed at the response for the first chapter. Had me smiling from ear to ear. I hope you guys stay interested in this story as it progresses. I promise this IS a Spashley story so no worries on that. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Review and let me know your thoughts, predictions, hopes... :)

* * *

"_We're here." My dad shakes Glen and I from our sleep._

"_Hmm?" I mumble out, not wanting to open my eyes. I feel like we've been in this car forever but I've grown to love this car. For more reasons than one. _

"_We're here." He says again. Glen and I sit up and stretch out a bit as we take in the place we're to call home for the next...however many days, weeks, months, years it takes for the government to figure out a way to stop the X virus. _

"_Where are we?" Glen asks._

"_Las Vegas." My dad says, getting out of the car and the rest of us follow suit. _

"_Will they have room for us here?" I ask quietly as I stare head at the thousands of people getting out of their cars, hoping to find safety within the walls of the MGM Grand hotel that has secured by the army for quarantine. _

"_I've always wanted to come to Vegas and stay here." Glen bends down and whispers to me with a smile. "Guess I get my wish now huh?" He bumps shoulders with me and I chuckle as my family and I make our way up the stairs into the hotel. _

"_I need to check your temperature." The soldier standing at the front gate tells a man in front of us. He is with a woman and two small children. I'm assuming his wife and kids._

"_I'm fine." The man maneuvers away from the soldier holding the thermometer. The other soldier raises his gun and tells the man that they only way he can get in is if they check his temperature._

_The man refuses again._

"_Daddy!" The little girl, who looks to be about two, pulls at his leg._

"_One second honey." He looks down and tells her._

"_Jeff please." His wife begs him. Why is she begging him?_

"_Check my wife and children in please." The man says and pushes his family in front of him. The soldier checks and clears them and another one escorts them in. _

"_Are you infected?" The soldier with the gun asks the man. I can see the sweat dripping off the mans forehead and how labored his breathing is. When the man doesn't speak the soldier asks him again. "Are you infected?" He asks louder. The man takes a step back. My father immediately pushes us backwards and I almost fall down the stairs. It's like he knew what was about to happen. _

"_Dad?" I question him. He places a protective hand around us as one soldier rolls the thermometer across the mans forehead and gives the other soldier with the gun a head nod. _

_The man fell less than a foot in front of me. Blood oozing from a small hole that is where is temple once was. I'm sure parts of it are splattered on the concrete steps. I shut my eyes tightly and imagine the man's family that just went inside, how those children won't get to ever see their father again. How he won't get to watch them grow up._

"_It's okay." Glen tells me rubbing both my arms, up and down. I can feel my breathing starting to pick up and I know an episode is coming. "Just stay calm, Spence." Glen whispers to me._

"_That man." I say, not daring to open my eyes._

"_I know." He says as he continues to rub my arms. "He was sick though Spence, he was gonna die anyways." Glen says and I know he's right. No one has survived the virus. Not yet anyways._

"_They shot him in the head." I breathe out._

"_It's the only way to insure he doesn't come back." Glen says in a soft voice._

"_Next!" I hear the soldier say._

"_Come on." Glen says, wrapping his arms around me. "Everything is gonna be fine." I finally open my eyes and look back at the man who'd just been shot. Two soldiers in body suits were carrying him around the side of the hotel. After we were checked and cleared the soldiers explained how everything worked including; food rationing, meal time, water and power usage and how long we were allowed to stay here. _

_One bag of corn per family and ten canned goods. My mother talked about how lucky she was to have a pantry stocked full of can goods. We'd brought most of them with us so food wouldn't be a problem. _

_Meal time is when everyone gathers together for hot meals. It only happens once a week and the food rationing is even tighter. But, it's better than eating corn from a bag and food from a can. _

_Everyone was allowed three one minute showers per week. They would be timed and there is a guard stationed outside of each bathroom. The building is running on generators and had its own back up water supply. With this many people I doubt it'll last long._

_Which is why each family is only allowed to stay for two weeks. Then we must move along._

_As we carried our bags from the car, I turned to look out a window and saw the men in body suits burning the people. _

"_Don't look." Glen says quickly, covering my eyes so I couldn't see._

"_Glen." I say, almost in tears. _

"_I know, baby sis." He says, taking my bag and throwing it over his shoulder as we ascend the stairs to the fourteenth floor to go to our room._

–

"There just isn't enough food anymore to ration it the way we have been." Carmen says. " We need to be smarter, we're running through our supplies quicker than we can replenish them."

"What do you suppose we do?" Tim asks. Tim has become somewhat the leader of our group. No one elected him or anything but he is the fastest, strongest, and smartest one so it kind of just happened.

Glen and I met him, his wife and son first. They were happy to take us in. Not that Glen and I weren't doing well on our own.

But it get's lonely after a while, we were happy to see other people.

"Hey." Tim's son Francisco comes and sits next to me.

"Hey." I smile down at the boy.

"I think we need to go and scavenge or we need to ration the portions better. I think the children should receive the bigger portions and us adults should make do with much smaller portions." Carmen suggests.

"That makes no sense." Rick pipes up. I look down and Francisco, then over to Jessica. They are so young. I hate what this world has become, because this is their childhood. Moving from place to place, all the killing and hunger. It's not right. "The children aren't the one's having to protect us. They aren't out getting fire wood and looking for water." Rick says.

"So what do you suppose, we starve Francisco, Jess, Spencer and Glen?" Jo asks.

Wait what?

I am not a child.

"I'm fine with smaller portions." I speak up.

"Me too." Glen says.

"It shouldn't have to be that way." Jo says.

"I think that it's late and we should all just get some rest. We are not going to get anything settled by arguing." Santana, Ricks wife speaks up.

"I'm up for a scavenge." I say. I'm not really in the mood to sleep.

"Me too." Glen says, standing up with me.

"Okay. We'll go scavenge." Tim says and he and Carmen get up as well.

"We'll be back soon." Carmen says as she kisses her girlfriend and daughter. Tim does the same with his wife and son.

"If we're not back by sunrise you all need to go on without us. It's too dangerous to stay here." Tim says and Rick nods.

"Tim I won't"

"No." Tim cuts off his wife. "If we're not back you go with the group you here me?" He says firmly and she nods and then wraps her arms around his neck.

"I love you daddy." Francisco tells his father.

"I love you too, kiddo." Tim kisses his son on his forehead again before we all gear up to go scavenge.


	3. The Scavenge

No worries out there, Ashley is coming I promise. I may start posting the chapters sooner. Really depends on you guys ;) Thanks for reading, reviewing, adding to your favorites and putting this story on alert! It means a whole lot! :)

_ MsBlaze: Wifey! Why you acting like you not privy to all this information before hand hehe. I love you! You already know my thoughts about your thoughts...see what I did there? lol_

_Always-An-Eternity: I don't think I have either. That's why I was so excited when the idea popped in my head. _

_lovegun1983: She's coming :) (I'm not sure if pun was intended there...hmmm.) Lol_

_SONNOC: I literally just had to prepare myself to write this reply...smh lol. You already know how I feel about long reviews though. Sigh. Okay moving on. How can this be number one and it's not done yet lol. I could bomb it and it totally sucks and then what? Hmmm? Didn't think of that did you! haha. No you're not crazy preparation is key! The government tends to suck in that department though. I know right! How dare they just use one hotel for the millions of people that live there? smh. That's where that unpreparedness comes into play. I'm glad you liked that scene and got exactly what I was trying to do with it. Cause I knew once I started writing it that it was gonna be sad. I didn't want it to be overly sad though (i.e his kids and wife having to watch him get shot) that would have just been too much for even me to handle. Oh no! Not crazy at all, I played softball too. And soccer and basketball. :) I love Glen too! He's amazing in this. Well in my head he's supposed to be amazing in this. One minute for a shower is very absurd that's not even time to lather up! Geez lol. And yes, I skipped your comment about Glen on purpose cause I just know how much you love that. Rick wants to be the leader of the group and with Tim not around he feels he can assume that role. smh some people right? And yes paula put the whole pantry in her suitcase. Damn her clothes! She's like we gotta eat lol._

_gmastrosan: Well hello there. :) I'm glad you think it's pretty good so far. Hope you continue to read._

_Chyna Deveroux: Here you are lol. Sorry to have kept you waiting. _

_JCEE: Thank you!_

_Trmack9: Hmmm...maybe she will be ;)_

_aks0985: OMG Really!? That means a lot to me. I'm glad that you love this story enough already to consider me that! Ahhh.. I just did a happy dance don't mind me lol_

_SpashleyPride15: 50 chapters...I'm not sure lol. But I will try and make it as lengthy as possible, how does that sound?_

_lilce1992: Yay! Maybe you'll love this one too :0_

_sparkles04: Yes! I seem to be don't I lol. Sometimes I just can't contain these stories in my head. They just have to come out lol. Thanks for checking it out. Hope you love love love it!_

_Tam24: I'm glad you're enjoying it! :)_

* * *

"Rick is becoming a problem." Carmen says as we continue our trek through the woods. Tim and Carmen are about ten or so steps in front of Glen and I, but we can pretty much hear their whole conversation.

"I know." Tim nods in agreement.

"What do we do?" Carmen asks.

"I'll handle it if I need to." Tim says.

"Walker." I yell out as quietly as possible. "Ten o'clock." I add. Both Tim and Carmen split in to two paths headed towards the walker from different angles. Carmen tosses Tim a machete and Tim quickly drives it through the walkers head.

I can never get used to the sound they make when we kill them. It's almost as piercing as nails on chalkboard.

"Nice." Tim says with a smile, patting me on my shoulder. "Let's move quicker, we wanna be able to make it back before nightfall." He adds and turns to run towards the town we'd be scavenging today.

Glen, Carmen and I all follow suit.

–

"_Why do we have to do this dad?" I ask as he kicks in the door to another house and Glen quickly makes his way inside, followed by my mother; both their weapons drawn._

"_To survive." He says simply and follows in behind them. "Stay close." He tells me. I'm the only one of us without a weapon. My dad says that it's too dangerous. _

_The world we live in now is too dangerous. Me holding a gun to protect myself...that's not dangerous._

_We've learned two things since we left the comforts of the army quarantine. The virus isn't airborne and to get it, you either have to be bitten or scratched. _

"_Clear." Glen yells from upstairs._

"_Clear." My mom says from the kitchen. _

"_Wait here." My dad turns and says to me. "I'm gonna check these back rooms." He adds then runs to the back of the house. Both Glen and my mom come stand beside me to wait for him. "All clear." He says coming back a few moments later. _

"_Are we sleeping here tonight?" Glen asks._

"_First lets see if there's food." My dad tells my brother as him and my mom head into the kitchen. _

"_I'm tired of this, Glen." I tell my brother as I take a seat on the couch._

"_Me too." He sighs and sits down next to me._

_"I miss her." I tell him and I know I don't have to say her name for him to know who I'm talking about._

"_I know you do, baby sis." _

"_We're setting up here tonight." My dad says coming out of the kitchen. "Help me fix this door Glen." Glen jumps up from my side and kisses me on the forehead before going to help out dad. _

–

"This way." Tim says once we reach a row of houses. He breaks down the door and we clear each room before heading into the kitchen and raiding all their cabinets. We found about 14 cans of food and some bags of rice. We move on to the next house. Clearing it, room by room. When I reached the upstairs bathroom, I decided to check the medicine for some supplies, without clearing the bathroom first.

Wrong move.

"Argh, ugggh." The walker attacks me from behind, knocking me to the floor before a scream could even leave my throat.

"Shit!" I mutter out as I try to keep it from biting or scratching me. It continues to chomp at my face as I struggle to get it off of me.

I use one hand to try to reach down to my pocket and grab the Swiss army knife my father gave to me, but the zombie is too strong. I need both my hands to keep it from biting me.

"Help!" I try to scream out. But I'm not sure how loud I was. Loud noises attract more of them and if there are more on this floor I'm a goner for sure.

"Ugngh arrh." The zombie continues to try to bite me. I muster of every bit of strength I have in me and punch it in the face once, which only disoriented it for a half a second before he goes back to trying to make me an evening snack.

"Glen!" I shout. "Get the fuck off of me!" I tell the walker like it can actually understand me. Even if it could, I doubt it would listen. Considering I'm food and all.

"Baby sis!" I hear Glen yell from somewhere out in the hall. I'm assuming the walker was behind the door because it's now shut and I didn't shut it.

There has to be at least five doors on this hall. Glen has no way of knowing which one I'm in.

"Glen!" I say again, while trying to keep the walker from biting my face off. A few seconds later Glen burst through the door and stabs the walker in the head. He tosses it's body off me and helps me to my feet.

"Are you okay, are you bitten?" He asks, scanning over my arms and legs with his eyes.

"No. It didn't get me." I shake my head.

"What about a scratch? Did it scratch you?" He asks panicking.

"No Glen, I'm fine I swear." I tell him and force a smile. I'm not fine. Far from it.

A momentary lapse in judgment just almost cost me my life.

Rule # 1

Always clear a room before entering it.

"What happened?" He asks, finally accepting that I'm okay.

"I didn't..." I shake my head and roll my eyes at my stupidity. "I wanted to check the medicine cabinet for supplies and I forgot to clear the room first." I tell him and he sighs.

"You gotta be more careful, Spence." He says pulling me into a hug. "I can't do this without you." He says pulling back, looking me straight in my eyes. His eyes are telling me that he means every word of what he's saying. And I feel the same about him.

I wouldn't want to live in this world anymore if I lost him. Glen's the only family I have left.

"I'm sorry." I tell him as he kisses my forehead and then bends down to pick up the gun I guess I dropped in the struggle.

"Get your supplies." He says handing me the gun and nodding towards the medicine cabinet. "The rest of this floor is clear so we'll be waiting downstairs." He tells me and hugs me tightly again before leaving.

I turn and face the mirror of the medicine cabinet, realizing some of the zombie blood had spattered on my neck and shirt. I turn the faucet on the sink and remember that there's no water. I take off my shirt and scrub my neck with it before tossing it into the tub and taking another one from my back pack.

I open the medicine cabinet and find a few useful supplies. Some antibiotics, rubbing alcohol and pain pills. I stuff them into my bag and head downstairs.

"Close call." Carmen says looking at me as I descend the stairs.

"I'm fine though." I assure her and Tim.

"Good." She nods and smiles a bit. "I've grown quite fond of you, little one." She says and ruffles my hair a bit.

"I'm sixteen." I say with a smile, slapping her hand away.

"So." She shrugs and wraps her arm around my shoulder.

"Let's finish up this row of houses and head back." Tim says to us and turns to exit the house. Carmen takes her arm from around my neck and follows him out.

"You're not leaving my side from now on." Glen tells me putting one arm around me.

"Don't I know it." I look up to him and smile. He kisses my hair and we follow Carmen and Tim out.


	4. Life As We Know It

Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! The reviews have been awesome so keep leaving them. I really enjoying reading them! :)

**lilce1992: **That'll definitely be explained in a later chapter :)

**lovegun1983:** Well here you are lol.

**DeathDealer**: Aww thank you. I'm glare you're liking my brain cause sometimes we don't get along lol. In love? ahhhh

**JayJayxo**: You love all my stories?! Well then I love you :)

**Annais:** Well your brother needs a good beating lol. Zombies are the best and I promise not to make this story too scary for you. You're awesome for giving my story a try even though you don't like zombies. :0

**Tam24**: Lol. Spencer got a little happy didn't she.

**Chyna Deveroux**: I love your name. I meant to say that in the last response. I don't want to keep you guys waiting too long but I want to build the suspense lol.

**Msblaze**: Baby... Ugh you already know how I feel about your comments cause you give them to me days in advance. I should stop responding to your comments that way ill have something to say on here. lol. I love you.

**Ohsoclever1**: I have seen Zombieland, Dawn of the Dead, and the Walking Dead. I guess all of them are kinda my inspirations for writing this story. I don't think I wrote it to be scary or serious lol. I'm not really sure if this is gonna be a comedy or what to be honest lol. Dramedy?

**SONNOC:** Okay...here we go. lol. Meh..it's okay so far. I haven't done anything worth that status yet. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings that's just a question I can't answer yet lol. Rick wants to be beat. You see that? lol. Nope I don't know anyone by the name of Rick so you're good lol. I'm glad you caught what I was tryna do there with the flashback. You always seem to actually! Yeah Arthur is on some other stuff right now so excuse him lol. My wife says the same exact thing about the zombie noises! haha. Shaun of the Dead is my SHIZ are you kidding me! lol. psst! Like I haven't seen that masterpiece lol. I think on something I read they do digest and have bodily functions it's just at an extremely slow pace. But I have no idea why they're hungry all the time #shrug. Lockdown! lol.

**Always-An-Eternity:** Favorite already? Awesome! lol. That's what my wife said people would say. Like how can people not love it. it has spashley and zombies lol.

**Chillaxin**: I swear you guys are so amazing for loving pretty much everything I put out. The support has been amazing and it makes me so giddy inside you have no idea lol. I'm glad you love my creative side. I hope I don't disappoint :)

* * *

"_Dad." I call out to my father as I shoot up in my bed._

"_What's the matter honey?" He runs over to my side. I see both my mother and Glen sit up and rub their eyes sleepily as my dad rubs my back to calm me down._

"_Bad dream." I tell him._

"_Aw, honey. It's alright." He says and climbs in the bed next to me. "It's not real." He tells me. "It was just a dream."_

"_But it is real." I tell him. I had dream about the man I saw shot right in front of my eyes three days ago. They shot him and then they burned his body. But in my dream he didn't get shot, in my dream he turned into one of them...the dead. _

"_No one can get you, Spencer. You're safe." My dad says. _

"_But we're not. We don't know how the virus is contracted. We could already be infected and not know it." I say a bit hysterically._

"_We know that the fever sets in." He says and places his hand to my forehead. "You feel pretty cool to me." I look up at him and he smiles._

"_But those things..." I trail off. I hate talking about what I saw that night on the bridge leaving California. Those people...all those dead people...just...walking around._

"_I promise to never let anything bad happen to you okay?" My father tells me as I lay my head down on his chest._

"_Spencer?" Glen calls for me._

"_I'm fine, Glen." I tell him and he nods sleepily before turning over and going back to sleep. Glen has always been very protective of me. I love him to death. We don't fight like normal brothers and sisters do, we genuinely care for each other._

"_Are you okay to go back to sleep?" My dad asks me._

"_Mhm." I nod and close my eyes._

"_I love you, Spence." My dad whispers as sleep overcomes me._

–

"Run!" Tim yells as he comes out of a house we were scavenging. None of us hesitate to take off running. Behind us are from what I can see, about fifteen dead and they're chasing after us.

Wanting to eat us.

"We're not gonna make it back to camp, it's getting too dark." Carmen says.

"More walkers!" Glen yells and we see the group of about five headed towards us from another direction.

"Shit." Tim says as we cut through a row of houses.

"There's too many." Carmen says, as yet another pack heads towards us from a different direction.

"We're not gonna outrun all of them." I say, realizing how many are closing in on us.

"Follow me." Tim says as he cuts through an alley. We've run into problems like this before out on scavenges, but not this many walkers at once. We're outnumbered and we don't have nearly enough ammo to kill them all.

"Tim!" Glen calls to him when the pack of fifteen gets closer.

"In here." Tim says, running into a building and shutting and locking the door behind us.

"This isn't gonna hold them." Carmen says, placing her back up against door as Tim does the same.

"Spencer, Glen, find something to barricade the door with." Tim tells us.

"But we're not even sure this place is secure." I point out. "It could be crawling with walkers." I add.

"We don't have a choice, now push that table over here." He says, pointing to a table in the corner.

Glen and I run over to the table and push it up to the door. Carmen and Tim move to help us put more barricades in front of the windows and side door.

"This will have to do. We need to clear the building now." Tim says.

"Two floors, Spencer and I can take the top floor, you and Carmen the bottom." Glen says. Tim nods as him and Carmen both pull out their guns and screw the silencers on them.

"You ready?" Glen looks to me and asks as he takes his gun out of the holder and does the same.

"Yeah." I nod. I grab my gun from my holster, take the safety off and cock it, then screw on my silencer as we make our way up the stairs to clear the second floor.

–

"_Don't hold it like that, Spence. The kick-back will hit you in the face." _

"_I got this, Glen." I tell my brother will a smile as I turn back and face my target._

"_Okay." He says and shakes his head. "Now concentrate. Focus only on the target in front of you. Drown everything else out." He tells me as I zero in on my target. _

_"Squeeze slo-"_

"_Ahh shit!" I scream out as I pull the trigger and the kick-back does indeed hit me in the face._

"_Told you." Glen says, holding out a hand to help me up from the ground._

"_Owie." I say and hold my nose._

"_Lemmy see." Glen says, trying to get a better look but I slap his hand away._

"_Noooo, don't touch it." I tell him._

"_I need to see it, Spencer." He says, sill trying to move my hands from covering my nose. I move my hands to let him see. "It's not broken." He tells me applying slight pressure to my nose._

"_Ouch!" I shriek._

"_Sorry." He says apologetically._

"_Is it swollen?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_Should we tell dad?"_

"_He's gonna kill me for teaching you how to shoot." Glen says._

"_Mom then?" I ask, tilting my head up to try to stop the bleeding._

"_Let's just take you to the doctor." Glen says walking me to the car and putting me inside._

_The bone in my nose was bruised and Glen and I both got on punishment when we got back home. He'd been promising to teach me to shoot since I was twelve and finally made good on that promise on my fourteenth birthday. That's a day I'll never forget._

–

"On three okay?" Glen says as we come up to the last door.

"Okay." I nod as he begins to count. On three he opens the door and we both hold up our weapons.

"Drop it!" A brunette girl tells us, holding a gun at us as well.

"You drop it." Glen tells her.

"No, you." She replies.

"What's going..." The guy's sentence dies in his throat when he comes out of what I'm assuming is the bathroom and he sees us, weapons drawn pointing them in the girls direction. "What's the move here?" He asks the girl.

"They're gonna drop their weapons." She tells him, without taking her eyes off me and Glen.

"No we're not. You guys are." Glen rebuttals.

"How about we all drop our weapons." I suggest. These are the first people we've come across since Rick and Santana joined our group four months ago. I don't want this to end the way I think it may.

"I'm not dropping my weapon." The brunette says.

"Okay." I nod and slowly take the clip out of my gun and place it on the ground. "That's not a problem."

"Spence, what are you doing?" Glen glances at me and asks.

"We're all people here, Glen. Why do we need these guns?" I turn to him and asks. He tries to tell me something with his eyes but I can't read them right now. I'm too focused on the brunette girl and brown haired boy in front of me, pointing their weapons at us.

"Don't shoot us." Glen says, taking the clip from his gun and placing it on the floor.

"Why are you here?" The girl asks.

"We got herded into this building by walkers." I say calmly.

"This is our place for the night." The guy speaks up.

"We didn't mean to intrude. We only wanted to get away from the herd." I tell him.

"Where are you from?" The girl asks, finally lowering her weapon. The guy does the same.

"California originally, but we came from Vegas after the outbreak." I say.

"Why are you in Pine Nut?" She asks, staring at me intently.

"We have a camp a few miles into the woods. We were just looking for supplies."

"Spence." Glen turns and scowls at me. I shrug and turn back to the girl.

"This territory is ours." The girl says.

"And we're sorry. We didn't think there was anyone around here."

"Apology accepted." The girl says and holsters her gun. Her face loosens a little and her demeanor changes to calm. "I'm Ashley." She says walking over to me and holding out her hand. "That's Aiden." She adds, pointing to the boy behind her as I shake her hand.

"I'm Spencer and this is my brother, Glen." I say pointing to Glen who smiles and shakes both their hands.

"Are there more of your group here?" She asks me.

"Yeah, um...Tim who's kinda like our leader and Carmen." I tell her. "They're clearing the bottom level." I say.

"We cleared this place when we got here earlier. The streets were crawling with walkers so we decided to set up camp here for the night. We knew we wouldn't make it back to camp." She says and I keep finding myself staring at her lips instead of her eyes. I think she notices cause she smiles and I quickly turn away. I'm sure my cheeks are red.

"We should probably go tell them where we are." I tell Ashley and Aiden.

"Okay." She nods. "We'll go with."

"Okay." We all walk down the stairs to see Carmen and Tim coming from a room in the back.

"All clear." Tim says but tenses and pulls out his weapon once he sees the two strangers straggling behind us.

"It's fine." I tell him, holding up a hand. "They're cool." I assure Tim and Carmen who both have their weapons drawn now. They stare at Aiden and Ashley for a minute before putting their guns away.

"They were here before us." Glen says. "They'd already cleared the house before we got here."

"What's the odds of that?" Carmen says with a slight smile.

"Pretty good actually. This building is in the middle of town. You can see every part of town from a window in here. It has the best vantage point." Tim says with narrowed eyes, staring at Ashley.

"Precisely." Ashley says, giving him the same look.

"You military?" Tim asks her.

"Both my parent's were." She answers. "They died of the virus eight months ago. Now it's just me and my little sister." Ashley answers.

"Hey!" The boy Aiden shrieks.

"And this doofus." She says shoulder bumping him. "My sister and I got in a real bad situation and he saved us from a few walkers a while back. Haven't been able to get rid of him since." She adds with a smile. "I'm Ashley, by the way." She says, walking over to Tim and Carmen, shaking their hands. "That's Aiden." She introduces him again and he shakes their hands.

"Tim, Carmen." Tim says, pointing to himself then to Carmen. "We're gonna have to stay here tonight." Tim says to Ashley.

"I heard. There's plenty of room." She says looking around at the building.

"We don't want any trouble. We can't trust you not to slit our throats and steal our gear in our sleep right?" Tim says and chuckles a bit, but anyone who knows Tim, knows that he's really serious.

"I promise." Ashley says as her and Aiden laugh along with Tim.

"You guys take the top, we'll take the bottom?" Carmen suggests.

"Sounds like a plan." Ashley nods. "But you guys are more than welcome to share the upstairs with us. More room and actual beds up there." She shrugs as her and Aiden start to ascend the stairs.

"I'm down." Glen says quickly. A little too quickly. I give him a look and he just shrugs and smiles shyly. What's that about?

"That's fine then." Tim speaks up.

We all head up stairs and pick a room.

"Boys with boys and girls with girls?" Aiden suggests to me and Glen.

"Sure." Ashley agrees.

"Okay." I say a bit timidly. I mean, I haven't been without my brother for over ten months. He's literally been at my side, every day and night. And plus I don't know these people. What if she really does try to slit my throat in my sleep.

"Goodnight, Spence." Glen says giving me a hug and kissing my forehead before going down the hall to a different room with Aiden.

"Guess it's just us." Ashley smiles and opens the door to a room close to us. "After you." She says holding out her hand.

I really hope this chick doesn't kill me in my sleep tonight.


	5. Know Thine Enemy

Hello lovely people :) I was grinning from all the reviews of the last chapter. Thanks everyone. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

_A Mind That Sits Still: Well I'm so incredibly happy that you gave my story a try and I'm glad that you're enjoying it :) Welcome to the party!_

_JCEE: Glad you're enjoying it! And you'll just have to wait and see hehe._

_Lexi: yay you love it! :)_

_Dominomino: She does seem like a bit of a bad ass right! haha. I'm glad you like my portrayal of her character._

_SONNOC: You analyze them huh? lol okay okay I see you professor lol. You guys have to stop calling me a great writer I swear my head wont be able to fit in my house after while. Then I'll be living on the streets, is that what you guys want? haha. I do know how to hotwire a car actually I think I learned from the movie gone in sixty seconds but I can't be sure lol. I mightve read it in a book somewhere. Lol yeah handle yourself over there haha. Arthur doesn't think that card has expired. He plays it every chance he gets right. Spencer will always be a kid to him. Or daddy's little girl. Don't we all adore Glen in this? Ahhh he's the best. Guilt trip is definitely not working. But keep working at it...maybe I'll soften up and tell you a secret lol. Yeaaaah that's exactly what I was going for with that flashback. How did you even...oh wait nevermind lol. you're good at reading my mind when it comes to stuff like that. Ashley is gonna be the best! At least that's what I'm going for. More badass stuff to come...Lol I literally laughed so loud when I read "pipe down aiden, no one likes you." omg so funny. You know Ashley trying to get it in lol. It's been however long with the zombie Apocalypse and all. she's like omg hot blonde alert lol. with aiden as her wing man. I'm getting! lol._

_Guest: thanks. here's another update for you._

_Tam24: I didn't want to bring her in two late and every become angry with me about it lol._

_MsBlaze: Baaaaby from now on you better be the first to review lol. Zombies are suuuuper strong don't sleep on 'em lol. Who wouldn't want to see Spencer with a gun. IDK why that song Stacey's got a gun just popped in my head._

_FFReviews: Lol I like the no parent's part too actually. Gives them more room to do naughty things haha. But I promise more zombies in the future. Oooooh you catch those small things...I try I try lol. Thanks for reading. :)_

_Chyna Deveroux: I'm glad you like her character. And I think I kinda intended for it to be funny, not really sure though lol. I think this story will be more humorous than scary._

_Brooke: Aw that's so super sweet. I'm glad you're enjoying it that much._

_Annais81: I think that the zombies are gonna just be the backdrop of the story. lol no worries it won't get too scary I promise._

_duralast406: Glad you enjoy the flashbacks. You'll definitely get some background info on Ashley but no chapters will be in Ashley's POV sorry._

_sparkles04: Yay you're reading this lol!_

_Ohsoclever1: She's back at camp. Ashley and Aiden left their group to go and scavenge. I'm glad you enjoy the flashbacks. I enjoy writing them, if you can't tell haha. Glen's dad taught him how to shoot. I used to be the opposite whenever I did something bad I would go to my dad first haha. he was the level headed one my mom would just always go off on me. You will find out who the her is in Spencer's flashback I promise you and you will also find out about Glen and Aiden. :)_

_taymm15: Me tooooo! I think that's where the idea came from. I was thinking, I've never seen a zombie or fight of your life type spashley story._

_GAYANDINLOVE: Love that pen name haha. And I totally understand cause I'd be thinking about that too to be honest. I planned on throwing that in there some kind of way cause It's definitely important. I want the story to seem as real as possible but still have that over the top fiction quality to it Glad you like this story. :)_

_SpashleyPride15: lol yes spashley haha. here's the next update for you._

_Always-An-Eternity: That's what my gf said lol. I'm glad you're enjoying it though. I think we've all been waiting for Ashley. She just makes any story better right? haha_

_Death Dealer: A genius?...thank you soooooo much! :)_

_sarahlynn00: It's totally okay. I know that everyone has a life and won't be able to review all the time. :) I hope all is well with you now though! Feel free to pm me if you need to talk. I'm a great listener. :) I'm glad you're enjoying the story. And you will most definitely find out what happened to their parents and background on Ashley._

* * *

"You wanna tell me about yourself?" The girl asks from her bed.

"Not particularly. Apparently, I've already given you too much information." I say, not turning over to look at her. I'm not entirely sure how much sleep I'll be getting tonight. There has to be a reason that boy Aiden wanted to room with my brother and have Ashley with me.

Are they planning on taking us out one by one?

"I'm not gonna hurt you. If that's what you're thinking." Ashley says and I can hear the amusement in her voice.

"I wasn't-"

"Aiden's gay." She says cutting me off. "I'm sure that's why he wanted to room with your brother. Not so he can kill him and take his supplies or anything." She says and when I turn to look at her she's smiling.

"My brother isn't..." I trail off and shake my head.

Is he? Come to think about it, I've never once seen Glen with a girlfriend.

"Mhm." Is all she says and lays back on her bed, facing the ceiling. "So..." She starts.

"Yeah?" I question, facing the ceiling now too.

"How old are you?" She asks.

"Sixteen." I answer.

"I'm eighteen. I have a sixteen-year-old sister though. The one I told you about. She's at camp with the rest of our group. I don't dare let her come out with us on scavenges. Your brother let's you-"

"My brother doesn't tell me what to do." I cut her off, turning to look at her. She's still looking at the ceiling.

"But he's protective right? I can tell." She says and turns to face me. She stares at me for a moment.

"Yeah." Is all I say before turning back to face the ceiling.

"That's cool. I'm protective of my little sister too. She's the only family I've got left." She says and I can feel her eyes boring into me. "What about you? Where's the rest of your family?" She asks.

"It's just me and Glen." I tell her.

"Your parents?"

"Gone." I say simply.

"I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose your parents. Mine didn't die of the fever like I said earlier." She says in a sad tone which causes me to turn and look at her.

"What do you mean?" I ask, intrigued.

"I shot them." She says and my breath hitches.

"I had no choice. My dad caught the fever first and he went crazy, started trying to eat us and he was so big and strong that I...I couldn't help him. I didn't know how to help him." She says with conviction. "I wanted to save him but I couldn't. He was coming after me so I picked up his gun off the table and I shot him in the head. A few days later I found a scratch on my moms back. She caught the virus a few hours after that and she started acting the same way as my father. She almost bit Kyla. I couldn't risk that happening so I shot her in the head too." She says as I continue to stare at her. Pain written all over her face.

If it had come down to it. I don't know if I would have been able to do that to my parents.

Thankfully, I didn't have to make that choice.

"I don't know exactly how my parent's died." I sit up and throw my legs over the edge of the bed.

"I'm sorry." She says again and I can tell she really means it. I shrug and smile a little.

"I'm sorry I thought you were gonna kill me in my sleep." I tell her and she giggles a bit.

"It's cool." She waves me off. We sit quietly for a moment before I break the silence.

"So your friends gay, huh?" I ask and she nods.

"Yup. As a bag of skittles." She says.

"Oh my God, skittles." I say remembering the delicious candy. Oh how I miss those days. Overdosing on junk food until I felt sick and my parents would want to scold me but they'd say that the tummy ache I'd get was punishment enough.

"Can I ask you something?" Ashley says suddenly.

"Sure." I say, breaking from my thoughts.

She looks like she's in thought for a moment before she shakes her head and says never mind. Then mumbles a quick goodnight before turning over and going to sleep.

"Goodnight." Is my reply, turning over and doing the same.

–

"_Will things ever get back to normal?" I ask my dad as we sit on the floor of an abandoned house we'd just scavenged. _

"_I don't know, sweetie." He says looking straight ahead. I know the answer is no though. _

_I'm fifteen and he still tries to protect me from everything._

"_Dad." I say and he looks down at me._

_"Hmm?"_

"_Are we gonna die?" I ask and he shakes his head._

"_I will never let one of those things get you, Spence. You're gonna live a long and happy life and get married and have children like you should." He tells me and I see the tears building in his eyes. _

"_Okay." I nod. Dropping the subject. I don't want to make my dad emotional. I know that what he's telling me isn't the truth but I appreciated him trying._

_The total of dead has risen. There are probably more dead now then living now._

_It's gonna be hard to outrun everyone and there aren't nearly enough bullets to kill them all. _

_The virus wiped out about twenty-five percent of the population and those of us who are left are being picked off by the dead. _

_Eaten if we're lucky._

_Bitten or scratched and turned into one of the dead if we're unlucky._

_The government is no more._

_Water, food and other essentials are becoming scarce. _

_Everyday is a struggle to stay alive. _

_But we're doing it. My father, mother, Glen and I._

_We're a family._

_And we're gonna stay that way. We're gonna make it through all this...whatever this is...we're gonna survive._


	6. Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

**Hello lovely readers...Not much to say besides I love you guys but that's a given right?**

_SONNOC: Heeeeeeeey! Lol. okay first off, you better stop tryna guilt trip me cause I may just end up telling you something and then you're gonna be all mad like boooo she actually told me something and it'll ruin the story and then what cha gonna do huuuuh? lol. Titanic though...really? I love that movie though. Jack...jack...jaaaaaaack lol. Jack is frozen Rose cause you wanna take up the entire piece of driftwood. lmao. over I'm gonna move on from that. Yes, hotwiring cars is my thaaaaang. hit me up I got chu! lol. Yeah, I didn't really wanna make a story where Aiden gets in the way cause I think I have one like that. Wait, maybe I don't oh wait yes I do. He was THAT guy in Already Taken so no thanks. lol. You went off on a skittles tangent haha. FUNNY! Aidens gay, glens gay, carmens gay, spencers gay, ashleys gay...next thing you know Tim's gonna come outta the closet lol. OOOOOooooo you caught that, what will spencer do when that moment comes? dun dun duuuuuun. lol That wasn't supposed to be funny at all but I can see you being that girl lol. I' sorry there was no flashback in the previous update. I didn't know you guys looked forward to those so much lol. Taste the rainbow lol. OMG I'm eating skittles riiiight now. Lol. that's a really good idea. Island here we come!... Okay I'm done haha. _

_Guest: Here's the next update for you. :)_

_Chyna Deveroux: Glad you're enjoying it. Here's the next update._

_A Mind That Sits Still: Hmmmm maybe maybe not lol. I'm glad you're getting more into the story. _

_TC: I LOVE SKITTLES THOUGH LOL_

_sparkles04: I'm just excited you're reading this lol. TBH! Did you read that other comment by Chillaxin1? Us making a story together would be...hmmm...idk lol._

_Chillaxin1: Nooooo don't be upset with me I'm sorry lol. Please forgive me. I hope this update will make you love me again. :(_

_Ohsoclever1: You're so smart at figuring my stories out haha i love it! I know it was over quick and I'm sorry. I'm honestly not trying to make the chapters super short that's just how they come out :( To be honest I miss those two a day updates too I'm also itching to post just as you are to read lol. BUT, I have not completed this story yet so it's an in progress thing and I have to pace myself. We are not going to peek into their conversation but this won't be the last we see or hear of them... :) I didn't even notice I do the whole 18/16 thing alot haha. In a world like this if people think you're a baby they thing you're weak and they also think you're disposable. I feel spencer on that! You're welcome! Thank you for reading. And oh! My brother called me gay as a bag of skittles once haha._

_FFReviews: lol that's an interesting thing to want haha. No doubt I would want it too though. I think you caaaaan but I could be wrong. shrug. lol. I think it's safe to say it's been a pretty long time for eeeeveryone lol. _

_Always-An-Eternity: Awesome! Hope you love this one too. _

_SpashleyPride15: Woot Woot! Spashley! Glen maaaaay be gay haha. Aw checking your email like that is uber sweet. Glad you like it that much. _

_Sgarc12: Awww I'm sorry lol. I'm not entirely sure I know how to write super long chapters. I promise to try though hehe. _

_Tam24: Not sure how long it'll be. I want it to be a natural progression. I guess as natural as it could be in a world like this right?_

_JCEE: Glad you liked it. I guess Spencer sees Ashley as an enemy cause she doesn't know her...yet. Yeah, definitely crazy._

_Annais81: Lol definitely won't be a TON of Zombie stuff but there will be some lol. Yeah, shooting your parents.. I couldn't imagine. _

_Msblaze: Baby all this time I don't think I've ever asked you what the heck your name meant so you can tell me now please. :) Yeah I remember that episode and that's what it's called crazy lol. Ew don't say anal play please! lol. OMG I loved that song! It was right around the time I moved out and became in-d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-t myself so I could relate lol. Ohhh and that beyonce song. All my women who independent throw yo hands up with meeeee! LOL. Ew skittle pox. But i wouldn't mind contracting them from you sooooo... yeah. Of course you love my brain. I constantly spoil you with stories and you won't even give me one chapter of you know what! Lucky I love you._

* * *

"_Glen let's go!" My dad yells to Glen as he practically drags my mother along. Glen has to pick me up and put me on his back because I'm so tired._

_It's been a month since we left the comforts of the quarantine at MGM Grand. We haven't been able to find another safe place yet. So we've been moving from house to house, trying to outrun the zombies. The outskirts of the city have gotten pretty bad. _

_But I'm tired of running._

"_Don't you dare even think about giving up." Glen says throwing me on his shoulders. _

"_I just wanna rest." I tell him._

"_We can't baby sis." He says and starts to run with me on his back. _

"_Glen hurry." My dad says shooting a walker in the head._

"_Take this." He says, handing me a gun over his shoulder. _

"_Glen I can't-"_

"_You can. I taught you. Just remember everything I taught you." He says and picks up speed, trying to catch up with mom and dad. _

"_Dad on your left." I yell ahead to my dad who takes down yet another walker. The house we were in got overrun with them. We had to make a quick exit during the middle of the night and running through the woods is never a great idea in the dark. _

"_We need to separate." My dad says those four dreaded words._

"_No!" I say firmly. The only way we can survive this is if we stick together. I know this. _

"_Your mother and I will lead them away from that cabin. You two go inside and barricade the doors."_

"_Dad no, Spencer's right." Glen speaks up. "We should stick together."_

"_If we stick together, we're all gonna die." My dad snaps at us. _

"_Dad please." _

"_Everything's gonna be alright Spencer. Your mother and I will be back to get you guys once we've taken care of all these walkers." He says then stops running. A pack of walkers are only a few feet behind us. "Please just go." He says kissing me and my brother on the forehead. My mother gives us both hugs as my father looks behind us and shoots a few walkers in the head. "Go!" He says again firmly and Glen and I don't hesitate to take off towards the cabin my father said to._

_That was the last time we ever saw our parents. _

–

"Spencer get up we need to go." Glen shakes me awake.

"Huh?" I say opening one eye to look at him.

"Get up, now." He says in a voice that I recognize. It's the same voice he had on the day we lost mom and dad.

Panic.

"What's going on?" I ask, hoping up and packing my bag.

"Walkers." Is all he says. I look over to the empty bed that once held a sleeping Ashley. "They're waiting for us downstairs." Glen answers my unasked question.

"Ready." I tell Glen as he snatches up my bag and we rush out the room and down the stairs.

"A dozen or so out front, fewer in the back." Tim says as he loads bullets into his gun.

"We can take out the five on this side." Ashley says, readying a bow and arrow. She can shoot a gun and an arrow?...

"Spencer, Glen, you ready?" Carmen asks me and my brother. We both nod as she readies herself behind a door to open it.

"Now." Tim says and Carmen swings the door open. The walkers that were banging on the door scurry inside in everyone's direction. Ashley shoots two in the head with an arrow quicker than I can kill my first one. I look at her briefly and she throws me a smirk. Tim and Carmen take care of six on their own.

"There's another herd heading from the east. Glen says looking out the front window.

"That's the way of camp." Carmen says.

"We're not gonna make it before the group moves on. We're gonna have to catch up with them later. For now, we need to make it out of this house alive." Tim says and everyone nods in agreement.

"Our camp is west. We can head there and then you can decide how you want to proceed." Ashley suggests and Tim nods.

"Okay."

"Ready?" Ashley turns and asks me.

"Yeah." I say as we all rush out the back door. Ashley takes out a couple more walkers that were gaining on us with one arrow as we hurry into the woods. We run through the woods for about twenty minutes straight before we decide that we're far enough from the town walkers to pace ourselves back to Ashley and Aiden's camp.

"You're really good with that." I tell her as we walk through the woods.

"Years of practice." She smiles. "My dad taught me when I nine and I've loved it ever since. I'd prefer to shoot one of these than a gun." She tells me.

"What happens with you run out of arrows?" I ask her. She used two back in town and she only has about eight more in the bag on her back.

"I know how to make more from sticks." She says confidently. "My dad also taught me that." She looks off like she remembering something...probably her dad.

"Spencer, can I talk to you for a second?" Glen asks catching up to me and Ashley.

"Sure." I tell him and Ashley thumbs a finger backwards to where Aiden is and then jogs back to him. "What's up?" I turn to my brother and ask. Glen has this look on his face that I can't read. A mixture of fear and embarrassment maybe.

"Um... nothing." He says and shakes his head.

"Glen seriously, tell me what's going on." I tell him lightly. We talk about everything. I told Glen I was gay before I even told my parents. He didn't judge me or anything. He even asked to meet the girl I was interested in. The girl who later became my first kiss...my first love...my first loss...

"Well... I um... I..." He sighs and swallows so hard I can hear it. Even with all the leaves and sticks crackling around us and we walk.

"Glen, spit it out!" I half yell, causing Carmen and Tim to turn around and look at us. Glen and I stop walking and let Ashley and Aiden pass us. Aiden turns around and gives Glen a smile.

A weird smile...

A...Oh my God he didn't!

"You didn't!" I say once Aiden and Ashley are out of ear shot.

"I did." He nods shyly.

"Glen you're...huh?" I ask so confused. Why did I never know my brother was gay?

"When you told mom and dad you were gay, I wanted to tell them then but I just... I couldn't..." He trails off and gauges me for a reaction.

"Glen!" I say and jump up into his arms.

Did he really think I would be upset about this?

"You're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad?" I ask, placing my feet back on the ground.

"I don't know..." He shrugs. "Because I didn't tell you."

"I'm not mad. You didn't have to hide this from me, though. I love you no matter what big bro." I tell him and give him another hug.

"Okay." He smiles as we start walking again.

"So you like him or was that just a one night thing?" I ask him and he looks up at Aiden who keeps glancing back at us.

"I don't know." Glen shrugs. "I think I _could_ like him." He says and I nod.

"Well I'm happy for you either way." I say and he smiles down at me.

"No no no no no." We hear Ashley almost yell out in front of us. She takes off running towards a bunch of bodies laying on the ground. "Kyla!" She calls out, looking around. Glen and I check the bodies on the ground.

"Walkers." Glen says.

"Ashley walkers." I tell her, pointing to her right. She waste no time loading her bow and shooting all six walkers using only four arrows.

She is extremely good with that thing.

"Ashley." Aiden says.

"I know." She says as she takes the arrows out of the walkers heads. "Camp must have been overrun. Dammit!" She says kicking up some dirt.

"What's the move?" Tim asks.

"My sister and three other members of our group aren't here. They probably got away. No telling how long ago."

"These bodies look fresh." Carmen says bending down in front of what remains of some members of Ashley's group. "A couple of hours tops." She adds.

Carmen was a nurse before all of this. She met her girlfriend Jayden when she was a patient at the hospital. They fell in love instantly they said. They just knew... They adopted Jessica when she was five and the only reason they aren't married is because it isn't legal where they're from.

"We have to find them." Ashley turns around and says to the group.

"We don't even know the direction they went." Tim says.

"I don't care." Ashley shrugs and shakes her head. "We have to go look for them."

"She's right." I tell Tim. "If this were your family you'd want to do the same." I add.

"Precisely. My family is out there. Our family." He turns to Carmen and says. "The longer we wait the further away they'll get and we may never find them." He adds.

"He's right." Carmen chimes in, coming up beside me. "We're losing daylight and we're gonna have to go around because we can't go back through town."

"How about we help them look for the rest of their group and once we find them, they can help us look for ours." I suggest.

"Yeah." Glen agrees. I'm guessing for more than just the fact that what I'm saying is the right thing to do.

"Spencer we-"

"Tim please." I beg him.

He sighs before saying, "Okay."

"They couldn't have gotten far." Ashley says and starts to walk in a random direction.

"How do you know that's the right way?" Carmen calls after her. She stops and turns around.

"Look at where all the bodies are, the walkers must have come from behind or my group would have been able to spot them and take them out. I'm assuming that ran in the opposite direction of the way the walkers came from." She says matter-of-factly, then turns around and starts walking again.

"She's smart." Glen leans down and whispers to me.

"Yeah." I breathe out. _A little bit too smart. I think there's something she's not telling us. _I think to myself as we follow behind her.


	7. On Our Own

_Tam24: Glad you enjoyed it._

_SpashleyPride15: I'm soooooorry lol. I promise not to take out the zombies. You're right. It's an apocalypse so zombies are important lol. You'll find out what Ashley is hiding in time I promise._

_Cornish: Yay! You know what's funny. When I read all the reviews for the first chapter and didn't see one from you I was thinking to myself oh no she must not like this story and now here you are explaining to me why. You've followed pretty much all my stories and I look forward to your reviews so I'm glad you decided to give my story a try. :)_

_Chillaxin1: I laughed so hard at that. Paula and Arthur chillaxin on a beach somewhere. Thinking...well I hope the kids are okay haha. Classic. And I totally agree with you lol._

_MsBlaze: Baby. You thought you were about that life? lol really? You know that was a BEYONCE song stop playing. There was never really a group it was beyonce and her backup singers. got it? Ew did I say that cause the way you just said it made it sound so extra gross so I change my mind if you get skittles pox I'm staying the hell away from you lol. SMH it's an apocolypse and you worried about getting it in like Glen huh? smh. okay wife lol._

_SONNOC: Man I loved titanic right up until that part I'm like are you getting me. Scoot the heck over ROSE! Save Jack you selfish selfish woman lol. I am dramatic though lol you caught me. I love writing drama. it's my thing. LOL you have a lot of feeling about Arthur and it's so funny to read. Paula had a gun I just failed to mention it lol. Ooooh so we both got skills we can save eachother in an apocalypse. Yes I got my hunger games on. TBH hunger games the movie was extremely wack. the book was much better. OMG I just pictured Spencer doing that. whew! lol. that was hot haha. lol glen is a whore no matter what story he's in. sorry about the skittles bit. I really wanted some and I had to let you know that I had some. spencer did blow glen up like omg you're gay! oh wait so am i lol. oh spencey. it is the goatee. so gay... you will find out who the mystery girl is I promise! Got a secret can you keep it swear this one you'll save. better lock it in your pocket, taking this one to the grave. And to show you that I know you won't tell what I said, cause two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. hahahaha._

_Guest: Thank you._

_Annais81: Yeah me too. Lol That's a good question. Why didn't Ashley wake Spencer? Hmmm... Yay! You're loving it even though there's zombies haha. awesome._

_sparkles04: Agreed! That is extremely hot lol. I don't know... I think the story would be super awesome so I'd agree with the others. We should make it happen lol._

_Chyna Deveroux: :) You'll find out real soon what's going on._

_Ohsoclever1: Lol Ashley has that affect on people right? She is so sexy! lol. I gotta showcase that. Idk... I never thought about it. I think she may be because I find her character easier to write for in some ways. I HAVE been watching it and to say I'm pissed at Sundays episode and what happened to Laurie would be an understatement. I'm like are you freaking kidding me!? Glen's all like idk I'm not tryna get tied down this is a zombie apocalypse and all lol. I'm glad you think it's getting better and better as it goes on. That makes me so happy to read. All the questions you have will be answered in time...I promise._

_JCEE: Ahhh It's okay lol. Glad you loved the update._

_A Mind That Sits Still: I don't know lol. That's an interesting theory though. You'll have to wait and see how it turns out. :)_

_lovegun1983: lol I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave it like that haha. I hope this makes up for it._

_Always-An-Eternity: Semi long right? lol. I'm trying I'm trying lol. You think that huh? I guess we'll just have to wait and see hehe._

_ashleyss27: Intense? Hmmm... I can't wait til you read some later chapters :)_

_TC: Yes he is lol._

_Dominomino: Ooooo I got you wondering lol. Yay!_

_sarahlynn00: I love when Aiden is gay too. He's less of a problem if at all lol. So you're right about that haha. I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter! You'll definitely get more insight into what happened to the Carlins. I promise not to leave you guys hanging. And no problem, honestly if you ever need to. don't hesitate._

* * *

"_We can't just leave, dad said to-"_

"_They're not coming back, Spence." Glen says, turning me to face him. "It's been four days. We have to accept the fact that-"_

"_No." I shake my head. "I'm not leaving here without them. They're our parent's Glen." My voice cracks, as the tears begin to well in my eyes. _

_I know Glen is right. If they were okay they would have been back by now._

"_We have to. We're not gonna survive here. We're sitting ducks, Spence." He grabs both my arms and begins to rub them up and down to calm me._

_I feel an episode coming on._

"_But..." I trail off as my breathing picks up._

"_Just calm down, baby sis. I promise I'm gonna take care of you. No worries." Glen forces a smile to try to make me believe in his words. It takes me a moment to calm down and when I finally do, Glen packs up our things and loads the weapons. "You're gonna have to use this, Spence." He says handing me the gun._

"_I know." I tell him, taking the gun. _

"_You ready?" He asks, throwing his backpack over his shoulder._

"_Yeah." I nod doing the same. _

_Glen and I were doing good on our own. _

_Surviving. _

_Scavenging. _

_As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months we figured we could do this. That it could be just him and I and we'd be alright. But this world...the one we're fighting to stay alive in...everything to me...started to seem not so worth it._

–

"I think we've passed this tree before." Aiden says pointing to a tree. A tree that looked exactly like every other tree in this _forest_. Finally, someone dumber than Glen.

"Aiden, shut up." Ashley says not even turning around to look at her friend.

"We need to rest. We've been walking for hours. It's gonna be nightfall soon." Carmen says.

"You're right." Ashley stops and turns to face us. We've been looking in the woods for about six or so hours now and we haven't found the rest of their group. If they had only a two-hour head start we should have found them by now. "We can set up camp here for the night and continue tomorrow."

"Wait that wasn't the deal." Tim says holding up his hand as Ashley takes a tent from her back pack.

"The deal was that you help us find our group and we help you find yours." She says not stopping what she's doing.

"No." Tim says firmly. "We were only supposed to help today. By the time we start looking for our group they could be days away." Tim adds. He's right. Rick knows not to stay in one place too long. He'll keep moving and we have no idea what direction they'll be traveling in.

"You can leave." Ashley shrugs. I really don't like where this conversation is going.

"How about we just discuss this tomorrow. No one can do anything tonight so why stress over it." I but in. Tim can get a bit abrasive.

"Fine." Tim says and takes his pack off his back to let out his tent. Aiden does the same and then looks to Glen.

"With me?" He questions Glen, who gives me a look. Normally we share a tent.

"It's fine, go." I wave him off.

"Thanks." He smiles and hugs me before joining Aiden in the setting up of his tent.

"I'll take the first shift." I tell Tim and he nods.

"I can stay up with you if you'd like." Carmen says and I shake my head.

"I'll be fine." I tell her with a smile.

"Okay." She nods and joins Tim in his tent. I walk over to a spot that I believe has the best view of all my angles and take a seat up against a tree.

"Want some company?" Ashley comes over and sits next to me.

"You don't have to stay up." I look over to her and tell her.

"I want to." She shrugs and places her bow down in front of her.

"I'm sorry about your sister." I say after a moment.

"I'm sure they're fine. She's pretty smart." She says with a smile.

"Okay." I smile back.

"So you still haven't told me anything about yourself." She says picking up a stick from the ground and take a knife out of her pocket. She breaks the long stick in half and begins to carve the edge into a point.

"Nothing much to tell." I shrug. She stops what she's doing and gives me a thoughtful look.

"I doubt that." She says before going back to carving the stick.

"My life has been pretty boring thus far." I say and almost have to hold back a chuckle.

"I seriously doubt that!" Ashley says through laughter. "This is anything but boring." She adds, gesturing around us. She looks at me and sees that I'm not the least bit interested in this conversation and asks, "You're guarded, why?"

I shrug. "Look around us, like you said." I say not turning to look at her.

"But at the house you were the one to tell your brother that we're all people and earlier you talked that guy Tim into helping us look for my sister...why?" She asks with a confused expression on her face.

"Because in a world where everything has gone to shit, if the few people who are left lose their humanity...then what's the point?" I say looking off into the distance. I can feel her staring at me and in my peripheral I can see that she's stopped what she was doing.

"You know, Spencer, you shouldn't be so guarded." She says picking back up her stick and continuing to carve the end of it.

"And why is that?" I ask, turning to face her.

"Cause it's good to let people in every once in a while. Someone might surprise you." She says with a smile. I stop myself from returning one.

"I'm gonna go pee." I say suddenly, standing up.

"Okay." She nods and smiles but doesn't take her eye of her work. I make my way through some shrubs and pull down my pants to pee.

I don't get what's up with this girl. One minute she's all J.I Jane and the next she's Oprah.

I shake thoughts of Ashley out of my head as I stand and pull of my pants.

"Arrgh, ungh." I hear behind me and I turn around to see a walker approaching me quickly. I fumble to get my knife out of my pocket when I hear something whiz past me. I look up as the walker hits the ground. I turn around and see Ashley pointing her bow in this direction. She runs over to me.

"You okay?" She asks, putting a foot to the head of the walker as she pulls her arrow out of his head.

"I...I'm fine." I nod.

"Close one." She says with a smile, reloading her bow.

"Yeah." I breathe out. A little too close, I think to myself.

"Maybe next time I'll come with." She says with a smirk and then walks away.

"Yeah okay." I nod my head, still in shock as I follow behind her.


	8. More Then What Meets The Eye

_Hey, I wanna put up another chapter really soon so get those reviews in fast and I promise to do so. I can't thank you guys enough for all the love you've shown me on this story. and nooooo in case this sounds like a authors note that I would give when the story is almost over, I promise it's no where near done. :)_

_SONNOC: Okay here we go. I'm done talking about the titanic cause it seriously makes me angry to even think about it. Maybe more flashbacks of him will change your mind. shrug...idk...sorry this isnt gonna be long I'm fighting sleep I type this but I wanted to get this update out. I have no idea where any of those references are from but I blame my tired brain lol so maybe tomorrow it'll dawn on me. You and your Finding Nemo references lol. I love it haha. Lol you keep dismissing Tim that is so freaking funny to me and I don't know why. Glen... he's so gay and I love it. You hate oprah? That's a first lol. I was rotfl at most of your review that's all I can say. _

_Lonelywolf12: Aww well welcome to the party! I'm glad you're enjoying it! _

_Annais81: That is a bad nightmare. I love superwoman Ashley MEGA SEXY Lol. I love Twilight though. I mean I wish the movies were as long as the hunger games but I think they do a good job with the. Here's the next update for you. :)_

_Cornish: I must admit I love seeing your name in my reviews. Don't be scared! They can't get you! haha. I'll protect you lol. I hate the dentist too. I know exactly what you're saying! Aww I'm glad you like it so far. I hope I continue to make you love it. You'll have to read to find out what the govt does if anything. :)_

_Tam24: Glad you enjoyed it. Ashley is definitely all of that!_

_JCEE: yay here you are._

_TC: I'm sorrrrrry lol._

_sparkles04: Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't mean to make them that short. Will posting more than once a day make up for the shortness? lol I'm trying here. haha. _

_Chillaxin1: LOL that review had me rolling. I would love to read useless reviews they're awesome lol_

_tamara morgenstern: lol yeah!_

_SpashleyPride15: She is and I love that about her. She is always there at the right time and I think we're gonna see that more in the future. I_

_Always-An-Eternity: Lol sticking with that huh? Let's hope that happens! lol Here's another update for you. _

_MsBlaze: Baby... I'm just gonna say I love you. _

_Ohsoclever1: I know I'm sorry it was so short. Lol maybe she wiped I have no idea haha. Yeah Ashley is such a beast with the bow I love that I made her that way lol. Haha I didn't even think about Carmen saying it like that. That's so funny. OMG I don't even wanna talk about that show it made me so freaking mad I can't even deal with it. lol. Glen and Aiden... yeaaaah I'm gonna leave that alone haha. _

_Guest: Here you are :)_

_A Mind That Sits Still: Lol I love that you're sticking with your theory. That may be the case, I don't blame Tim and Carmen for wanting to catch up to their families. The middle is never a good place to be. I'm glad that you enjoy the progression of Spencer and Ashley's relationship._

* * *

"We're gonna need to make a decision soon, we're wasting daylight." Carmen says to the group as we continue to try to decide what we're gonna do.

"I vote we help them find their group." Glen speaks up.

"Me too." I say and Ashley turns and gives me a slight smile.

"What about our group, me and Carmen's families?" Tim asks.

"We're not saying that they aren't important." Ashley says, putting her bow on her back. "We're closer to my group so we're gonna look for them first and we promise to help look for yours."

"I know these woods." Aiden says. "If you tell me where they were last, I could probably help you find them in no time." He adds.

"Sounds like a plan." I say.

Tim sighs and looks at Carmen for an answer. She shrugs and shakes her head like she doesn't know what to do.

"Okay." Tim nods to Ashley.

"Okay, let's get going." She says, throwing her pack on her shoulder and taking off into the woods with all of us on her heels.

"Spencer." Carmen walks up next to me and says. We're in the back of the group. A few feet behind Aiden and Glen who can't seem to keep their hands off each other.

"Yeah?" I ask, turning to look at her briefly.

"How much do you know about this Ashley girl?" She asks me and I stop walking and turn to face.

"I don't know." I shrug. "Not a lot, I guess...why?" I question her with narrowed eyes. Was she getting the same feeling as I was?

That Ashley was hiding something...something big.

"I don't know." She shakes her head as we start back walking. "I just feel like maybe there's more to her then she's letting on." She says, boring holes into Ashley's back.

"I think she's just..." I trail off, not entirely sure what I was going to say.

"She's just what?" Carmen asks, glancing over at me. I keep my eyes on Ashley for a moment. She walks with so much authority. Almost like she's been in a situation where she's had to lead before. She's super confident and amazingly good with a bow and arrow and probably her gun too. I've yet to see her shoot it though. "Spencer." Carmen calls my name, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Hmm?" I ask, looking over at her.

She smiles and looks back up at Ashley. "You like her huh?" She asks.

What?

"What?"

"I can tell. I think she likes you too."

"I barely know her."

"I barely knew Jayden before I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her." Carmen shrugs. "Sometimes we don't get to choose who we love, it just happens."

"I don't love her!" I counter quickly.

"Didn't say you did." Carmen turns to me and says with a smirk. She runs to catch up with Tim close to the front. Glen whispers something in Aiden's ear then comes and join me in the back of the group.

"How's it going baby sis?" He asks with a smile.

"I should be asking you that." I say with a smile. Glen blushes a deep shade of red before shaking his head.

"It's going." Is all he says. "I mean with Ashley, though." He says after a moment. Why does everyone think I'm into Ashley? I've only known the girl for three days.

"Glen I don't-"

"I think she likes you." He says cheerfully.

"We barely know each other. How do you even know she's into girls?" I ask, out of sheer curiosity.

"I don't. Aiden says she never talks about past relationships or anything like that. He barely knows anything about her, now that I think about it." Glen says and scratches his head.

"That seems to be the theme going around." I say softly as I stare at Ashley's back.

"Yeah, well if you like her you should just ask her if she's into girls." He shrugs. "That's what Aiden did... you know to me about guys." He adds before running to catch up with Aiden.

Maybe I should just ask her...I mean, asking her if she's into girls doesn't mean I like her or anything.

We walk for a couple more hours before we decide to break for lunch.

"Four cans of beans and a box of crackers." Aiden says taking everything from his bag.

"Two cans of soup, a can of corn and some Vienna sausages." Tim says, doing the same.

"I have medical supplies in my bag." I tell the group.

"I have spices." Glen says with a shrug. Getting a look from everyone. "What?" He asks looking around at everyone. "You're gonna thank me later when you don't have to eat bland beans and corn." How did I not see that he was gay?...

"I have rice." Carmen says, shaking her head at Glen.

"I think there's a creek about a mile in that direction." Ashley says, pointing to her right. "I could probably catch some fish."

"That's a great idea. A little protein would be great right about now." Tim says. Ashley gets up and looks around for something. She picks up a stick and takes a need and some rope from her backpack. She bends the needle on a rock then takes the rope and ties it all to the stick she just found.

Really?

She didn't just make a fishing rod in five seconds.

"What were you before all this?" Tim asks Ashley with a raised brow. I guess as amazed as I am.

"A student." Ashley answers quickly before she starts to walk in the direction of the creek.

"I'm gonna..." I trail off and point in the direction Ashley just walked off to. Getting a smile from both Glen and Carmen. "Ashley wait up!" I say as I chase after her.

"Hey." She says once I reach her.

"Hi." I reply with a smile.

"You fish?" She raises a brow and asks.

"Yeah." I say with a puffed out chest.

"Right." She says and laughs a bit.

"What?" I drawl out. "I do fish." I say, trying to convince her. She's not buying it.

"Lemmy see your hands." She says and grabs my left hand before I can even reply. We stop walking as she examines my hand carefully. "No you don't." She shakes her head, dropping my hand and starting to walk again.

"Okay so I don't." I jog to catch up with her. "My dad was gonna teach me once." I say.

"What happened?" She asks quirking a brow.

"A zombie apocalypse." I tell her with a shrug.

"Right."

"Teach me." I throw out.

She turns and looks at me, brows raised and a smirk playing at her lips.

"Okay." Is all she says before turning and continuing to walk towards the creek.

"Okay." I say unnecessarily as I turn and follow her.


	9. Naked Truths

No time to reply to all your amazing reviews but I promise to pick back up on it the next chapter. To everyone who had questions, I'll answer them in a PM or in the next chapter replies. Thanks again for all the love everyone! You are all awesome! :)

* * *

"_Who's bright idea was it to go camping?" My mom asks as me and Glen set up our tents. _

"_Spencers!" Glen turns and says. I punch him in the arm. "Ow." He shrieks. Turning to me with a smile._

"_Way to throw me under the bus."_

_"Well it waaaaas your idea." He shrugs and walks around to hammer the other side of the tent into the ground. _

"_I don't remember anyone protesting when I suggested it last week." _

"_Well in theory, it sounded like a great idea." My mom says, slapping at another mosquito that landed on her leg. _

"_Try this honey." My dad says tossing her the bug repellant. _

"_We should have gone to the batting cages." Glen says, standing and shaking his head. _

"_You love the outdoors, shut up." I playfully slap at him. _

"_Nope. I love you." He says in his big brother voice and smiles, then touches my nose with his index finger and quickly pulls back._

"_I'm not a baby, Glen, stop doing that!" I whine and he ruffles my hair. _

"_You're my baby sister so..." He trails off and shrugs and leaves to help out mother set up her tent. _

"_Having fun yet?" My dad ask coming and taking a seat next to me in front of my tent._

"_Mhm." I nod and smile._

"_Good." He leans over and kisses my forehead. "How about some fishing son." My dad calls out to Glen who perks up._

"_Yeah!" He says excitedly._

"_Can I come?" I ask my dad as he stands. _

"_Not this time Spence." He says looking down at me. _

"_Why noooot?" I stand and pout._

_He bends down to eye level with me and says, "I promise next time." And kisses my cheek._

"_Okay." My fourteen year old form nods. _

–

"Now you just wanna do it like this, and then throw it gently into the water." Ashley says into my ear.

"Like this?" I ask, trying to do everything she's told me so far. She chuckles a bit then answers.

"If had a real rod I could teach you better." Ashley says as she stands behind me and helps me throw the make-shift fishing line into the creek again."

"Can I ask you something?" I turn my head slightly and ask. Her lips are a mere breath from my cheek and I have to compose myself when I feel her breathing pick up.

"Sure." She says and swallow thickly.

"Who are you? Like really?" I ask. She sighs and back up from me, taking the rod out of my hand and walking over to a rock near the creek and sitting down as she cast the line back into the water.

"You wouldn't like the answer." She says after a moment.

"We all have our pasts, I wouldn't judge you for yours." I tell her as I take a seat next to her on the rock. She keeps her eyes focused on the rope in the water. I don't push her to give me an answer. We just sit and listen to the water.

"My parent's weren't in the military." She says finally, breaking the silence. My head shoots in her direction.

"Who were they?" I ask softly.

"My dad worked for the C.I.A and my mom worked for the CDC." She says and finally turns to face me. I don't know what to say. I'm utterly speechless. "Are you mad?" She asks, trying to read my face.

"No." I shake my head.

"But I lied." She says and turns back to the water.

"We all lie." Is my reply. She turns back to me and gives me a quick smile before casting her line back into the water. We sit and talk while she tries to catch a fish. "Um Ashley." I say, cutting her off mid-sentence.

"Yeah?" She turns and faces me. Hearing the panic in my voice.

"Run." I say and get up. She glances to her left and see's the group of about ten walkers headed towards us.

"Shit!" I hear her yell as she takes off behind me.

We run back through the woods to camp with the walkers right on our tail.

"We gotta go now!" I yell out to the group who are sitting around cooking lunch and talking. They all turn and look at me but no one's moving. I'm a few feet in front of Ashley but I don't have to turn around to know the walkers are only a few feet behind her. "Walkers let's go!" I say louder and they get it this time. Everyone scrambles to gather up as much of the camp gear as they can and starts loading their weapons.

"How many?" Tim asks as everyone starts to run. I can smell the food cooking as I run past camp and now I'm regretting going with Ashley to the creek. My stomach grumbles in agreement. "Spencer how many?!" Tim asks me again and I shake my head to clear out the thoughts of food.

"Ten at least." I tell him.

"Ashley!" He yells over his shoulder. Ashley is behind us, barely keeping up but I know she can take care of herself if it came down to it.

"Yeah?" Ashley replies.

"Can you take any of them out?" Tim asks.

"I'd be ambushed." She tells him.

"We need to split up and double back. Come from behind them. We won't be able to outrun them." Tim says.

"Carmen and I will go left." Glen says in front of us.

"Glen." It comes out of my mouth in a strangled cry. Partly because we haven't been separated since the day this all started, except the one time I almost got killed in the bathroom, and partly because running and talking isn't the easiest thing to do in this world. Especially when the most exercise I did prior to the zombie apocalypse was walk to the fridge for a soda.

"You'll be fine Spence I promise." Glen knows what I'm thinking.

"Spencer and I can go right." Ashley says behind me. I turn around briefly to see the look on her face. She's confident.

"Aiden and I will continue straight. Some may follow you guys, we'll try to keep the biggest group with us."

"On three." Carmen says.

"One...two..." Tim begins to count off. "Three." He says and everyone goes in the direction they're supposed to. Two walkers follow us and I don't know which way the rest of them went.

"There a silencer on that?" Ashley asks, glancing down at my gun.

"Yeah." I nod.

"Can you take out these two quickly?" She asks, looking me dead in my eyes.

I swallow thickly before answering. Ashley makes me extremely nervous for some reason. I think it's the confidence she exudes. "I think so." I answer.

"Do it." She says quickly before scaling a tree like a fucking monkey.

"What the..."

"Argh, unnngh."

"Spencer the walkers!" Ashley says from above me somewhere. I know she is not flying through trees like Tarzan right now!

"Oh shit." I mumble before turning around and quickly shooting both walkers in the head.

"Nice!" She shouts. She jumps down from a tree and takes her bow off her back.

"You're pretty good with that." She says with a smile.

"Why'd you just climb that tree?" I ask looking up to the tree she just jumped down from.

"To distract them." She says nodding her head in the direction of the two dead walkers a couple feet away from us.

"Don't do that again." I shake my head at her and she smiles.

"Okay." She says holding her hands up in defense.

"We should get back and help the others." I say.

"Yeah." She nods. I take off running back in the direction we came from and I can hear her start running behind me. "Spencer!" She calls me after we've been running for about ten minutes.

"Where are they?" I stop and turn around.

"They can't be far, maybe we just got turned around."

"We're lost!" I half yell. I'm not that crazy to scream loud enough to attract roaming walkers.

"We're not lost, calm down." Ashley tells me.

"Don't tell me to calm down, you calm down!" I snap.

"I'm not the one yelling." She tells me with a half smile.

I glare at her before saying, "We need to find my brother. I can't believe this is happening." I say throwing my hands up and looking around at the thousands of trees surrounding me.

"We'll find them." She says moving closer to me.

"You don't know that!"

"Yes I do." She says moving even closer.

"And if it we don't?" I question, raising a brow.

"We will." She tells me firmly, looking straight into my eyes. "I promise you we'll find them." She tells me again as we start walking in no specific direction.


	10. Losing It All

I love you all so much! I'm really sorry I can't respond to all your amazing reviews. I would have been able to tonight but I really wanted to get this update out. This will undoubtedly answer a lot of the questions you all have and if not please feel free to private message me.

* * *

"_Glen, we're lost aren't we?" I stop and ask my brother. Ever since we left the house we'd been held up in, waiting for our parents we haven't stopped once. We were supposed to be heading back to the city to see if there were any shelters still in use. We've been walking around these woods forever though._

"_We're not lost. I just don't know where we're going." Glen says nonchalantly with a shrug._

"_Isn't that the same thing." _

"_Potato, PoTAHto." He says._

"_Glen I need to rest." I whine and he shakes his head and turns to face me. _

"_We need to keep moving, it's gonna be dark soon. We're miles from anything, Spence."_

"_But we've been walking forever!" I tell him._

"_You want me to carry you?" He asks and I nod. Sometimes it's so amazing having a big brother like Glen. _

"_Fine, hop on." He says, turning his back to me so I can get on. I hop on his back and lay my head down on his shoulder._

"_Glen..." I say softly._

"_Yeah, Spence?" He asks as he starts to walk again. _

"_I love you." I whisper._

"_I love you too, baby sis." He says with conviction._

_We walked for at least another hour before we reached a highway. Glen carried me the entire way. _

"_What happened?" I ask, looking around at the city once known as Las Vegas as I hop off Glen's back. _

_Burned down buildings, empty cars, dirty streets... walkers galore. _

"_I guess they got overrun." Glen says taking his weapon off his clip._

"_What do we do now?" I ask, desperation evident in my tone. We had no plan B. When mom and dad didn't come back we decided to head for the city for help...but there is none. Probably not even a government anymore. No army, no shelters, no anything._

"_I guess we're on our own." Glen says and looks down at me. I'm fifteen-years-old and Glen's only sixteen, how can we survive out here on our own? "We can do this." He says bending down to my eye level. I guess he could feel the anguish seeping from me._

"_Can we?" I question him and a slight smile plays at his lips._

"_Watch us." Is his reply._

–

"Your brother and Aiden are getting pretty cozy." Ashley turns to me and says with a smile.

"Yeah." I nod. I'm not really in the mood to chat to be honest. I just want to find my brother.

"Did you know your brother was..." She trails off and glances at me.

"No." I shake my head. "He never said anything. He said it was because after I came out he didn't wanna..."

"Wait you're gay?" She interrupts me.

"Yeah." I say turning to her. "Problem?" I question with a raised brow.

"No." She shakes her head. "I just didn't know that you were-"

"Why would you?" I cut in. "It's not like a just go around broadcasting my sexuality to the world." I add.

"Okay." Is her only reply.

"Sorry." I mumble, I didn't mean to sound rude.

"It's cool." She shakes her head and waves me off. "So you had a girlfriend before all this?" She asks and I turn and raise a brow at her. Really? She wants to ask me this while we're looking for our friends...my brother!?

"I'm sixteen." I settle on. I don't really like talking about Lindsey.

"And?" She says making a face. "I had my first girlfriend when I was twelve. Granted the love wasn't reciprocated, but Mindy will always have a special place in my heart." She says dramatically and puts her hand over her heart.

"Mindy?" I question with a smile.

"I can feel you judging me, Spencer." She says my name and I became a part of the walking dead for a moment.

Seriously, the way she just said my name made my heart stop.

"No judging." I shake my head. "I didn't know you were-"

"Why would you?" She cuts me off with a smile. "It's not like I go around broadcasting my sexuality." She adds and winks at me.

She really should stop doing that.

"Funny." I say, biting my lip to hold back a smile.

"So really Spence, who was the lucky lady to steal your heart away? I can tell there was someone by the way your face changed when I asked." She says. Damn her and her all knowing mind!

"Are you sure you weren't C.I.A?" I question her and she smirks.

"Pretty sure." She nods. "Don't avoid the question."

"I'm not avoiding it. I'm politely deciding not to answer it." I shrug and pick up my pace. It catches her off guard because she has to run to catch up with me.

"Why do you do that?" She asks, once she reaches me?

"Do what?" I play dumb.

"Avoid and then escape." She says, narrowing her eyes at me.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I shake my head.

"You do! You know exactly what I'm talking about Spencer..." She trails off and shakes her head. "I never got your last name." She says after a moment.

"I never gave it." I reply nonchalantly and in my peripheral I see her smile.

"You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch." She sings out and I can't help the laugh that escapes my lips.

"No... you did not just say that." I shake my head and continue to laugh at her.

"I did." She nods proudly and smiles. We both get quiet for a moment Ashley's eyes go wide.

"Ashley, what is it?" I question as she quickly takes the bow off her back and loads it.

"Duck." She tells me sternly and she doesn't have to tell me twice. I'm on the ground as the first arrow leaves her bow and she quickly reloads for a second and third time, shooting off each arrow before I could even register the five walkers headed towards us. She killed them all with only three arrows.

Did I mention how fucking good she is with that thing?

Yeah?

Well I'm telling you again.

She's fucking amazing!

"Wow." I breathe out as I stand up. Ashley walks over to the walkers and takes her arrows out of their heads.

"We better hurry and catch up to the group. We really need to get out of this area. I think the walkers from town are migrating this way. We've seen way too many today." She says reloading her bow. I can tell that our previous conversation over.

She has gone in to sexy...I mean serious mode.

Who am I kidding?

I meant sexy!

"Do you really think we're gonna find them?" I ask softly after a few minutes of quietly walking. Cause we've been looking for her group for two days now and there's no sign of them.

What if the zombies got everyone?

What if it's just me and Ashley now.

What if Glen...I can't even force myself to think it.

"Yep." Ashley says in a cheerful tone. I look up at her and she smiles.

"Baby sis!" I hear Glen's voice and I turn to the side to see him and Carmen walking towards us.

"Glen!" I shout and run and jump in his arms.

"Oh, nice to see you too Carmen." Carmen says sarcastically with a smile and shakes her head as Glen places me back on the ground.

"I'm always happy to see you Carmen." I say with a smile and hug her.

"Where's Aiden and Tim?" Ashley asks as she comes up behind me.

"We don't know." Carmen says with a shrug.

"We thought they'd caught up to you guys." Glen says and I can tell that he's concerned about Aiden's safety.

"Nah, we haven't seen them." I shake my head and say.

"Should we continue to look for them or find somewhere to camp for the night?" Carmen asks us and everyone has an 'I don't know' look on their face.

"Maybe we can search for them for a little while longer and find a place to set up camp for the night too." Glen suggests.

"I'm starving." I pipe up as my stomach grumbles in agreement.

"Yeah me too." Ashley nods.

"Let's eat first then search." Carmen says and everyone nods. Ashley makes a fire quicker than I've ever seen anyone make one and we warm up a few of the canned goods. Aiden and Tim had a lot of the supply so we were only left with a small amount to work with.

–

"Hey." Ashley says as she comes and sits down next to me with her can of corn. Glen and Carmen are a few feet away chit chatting about something that's less interesting than this can of beans of devouring right now. Glen gave me more than half the can. He's the greatest, I know.

"Hey." I reply. "You worried about Aiden?" I ask.

"Nah." She shakes her head. "Aiden grew up around here. He can handle himself." She says.

"Plus he's with Tim. They'll be fine." I add.

"I know." She nods and sits her can of corn down next to the rock she's sitting on. "Can I ask you something?" She turns to me and says.

"Mhm." I elect to nod instead of talk with a mouth full of food.

"Your first girlfriend, did she die?" She asks in a soft voice. She can tell that this is something I don't want to talk about but her curiosity is getting the best of her right now. I swallow the food in my mouth and place my can down beside me.

"Yeah." I nod and look down at the ground.

"Virus or..." She trails off. I know what she's asking though. She wants to know if the virus killed her or did she get eaten by zombies.

"Virus." I clarify.

"I'm sorry." She mumbles softly.

"You didn't give her the virus." I shake my head and laugh a bit but Ashley just bites her lip and looks away. "Look it's fine. I just...I don't really like talking about her." I shrug and pick my can back up.

"I get it." She says and stands. "Ready to head out?" She asks, holding a hand out for me.

"Yeah." I nod. We all pack up and head out to look for Tim and Aiden.

–

"_I'm not leaving here without her." I tell my parent's as my dad tries to drive past her street. _

"_Spencer we don't have time to stop. We need to make it to the base before it fills up." My dad tells me, but I'm not listening._

"_Dad if you don't take me to her I'm gonna jump out of this car!" I almost yell. _

"_Spencer we don't-"_

"_Glen I need to see her." I interrupt him. He knows how much Lindsey means to me. _

"_Okay." He nods once. "Dad she'll be quick." He says to my dad who sighs and turns down Lindsey's street. When we reach her house I don't wait for my dad to put the car in park before I hop out of the car and run to the front door. I knock so hard my knuckles start to hurt. When no one answers the door I turn to see if her parent's car was in the drive way. It was...so why wasn't anyone answering the door. I turn the handle and realize it's open._

"_Hello?" I call out once I enter the house, pulling my mask down off my face.. "Hello?" I say again when I get no answer. "Mr. and Mrs. Green?" I shout. Still nothing. "Lindsey?" I try. _

"_Spencer?" A familiar voice calls to me._

"_Lindsey?" I turn around and face my girlfriend. Her cheeks are red, she's dripping with sweat and walking over to me slowly. "Lindsey are you sick?" I ask her. My hand instantly shoots up to my face, I contemplate putting my mask back on but then decide that it doesn't matter._

"_They're dead. They're both dead." She says, moving closer to me. I look down at her leg and see the reason she's dragging it. They're a good chunk of it missing._

"_Lindsey what happened to your leg?" I question again as her eyes turn black and the talking stops. As she moves toward me I back up until I back into a wall. Lindsey says something indecipherable as her breathing picks up and she begins to drool and foam at the mouth. "Lindsey?" I say closing my eyes trying to will myself not to cry. I know what's going on. Lindsey has the virus and she's now changed into one of them...right in front of my eyes. _

"_Arggh, ungh." She says as she moves closer to me. At any moment I know that my life will be over. That the girl I shared my first kiss with...that I loved more than anything...this girl would be the one to end my life...and I didn't care. If she wouldn't be here on this earth then I didn't want to be here either._

_She's extremely close to me now. I don't have to open my eyes to know that. _

_I begin to count down the seconds I have left in my head._

_Five..._

_Four..._

_Three..._

_Two..._

_Then I heard a loud pang. I open my eyes, expecting to find my girlfriends teeth digging into my neck...and not in the good way but instead I find Glen standing over her lifeless body with a steel bat in his hand._

"_What the hell are you doing, Spence?" He asks me and shakes his head. _

"_She's dead." I say looking down at Lindseys form._

"_Yeah. I'm sorry Spence. But are you trying to get yourself killed too?" He questions and I honestly don't have an answer. "We gotta go." He says picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder. I take another look at the girl I once loved...she was gone...and she was never coming back._


	11. Lost And Found

_Don't hate me guys lol. I know I've been saying I would go back to the review responses but I honestly just don't have the time. Here are some answers to random questions though: (not a question) but yeah I know this chapter was sad. I'm sorry about that but it was definitely necessary for the story. :), I promise more spashley is coming up soon. I didn't want to rush their relationship that's why it's progressing at a slower pace. Lol I think Ashley may be a ninja like most of you think haha. The mystery of Ashley will be revealed. Probably not any time soon but I promise you will know what is going on with Ashley by the end of this story. I am up to chapter 22 on pre-written chapters (which was a secret until just now) I would love to post faster but I also love reading your reviews lol so there in lies the problem. Anyways, Thank you all for reading and reviewing and I hope you enjoy this chapter. _

* * *

"We're not gonna find them before sundown." I say as we continue to walk through the woods. I mean how big can these woods be?

"She's right." Ashley agrees.

"I don't think it matters." Carmen says stopping in her tracks. We all turn to see what she's looking at.

Ugh!

More walkers.

"Fuck!" Glen yells out in frustration as he takes his gun off his clip and loads it.

"Don't these things ever get full?" I ask as I do the same.

"Probably not." Ashley answers my rhetorical question and when I glance at her she smiles.

"Could you two stop making googly eyes at each other while we're about to be ambushed by walkers." Glen says.

"Glen!" I shriek. I was so not making googly eyes with her just now.

"Glen, leave your sister alone." Carmen scolds him.

"I'm just saying." Glen shrugs.

"Don't be a douche, Glen."

"I'm not though baby sis I'm just-"

"Oh don't you baby sis me right now mister."

"Did you just mister me?"

"Um guys..." Ashley says.

"What?!" Glen and I both turn to her and say.

"Zombies." She says nodding in their direction.

Oh right.

"Run!" Glen says. Like that needed to be said. The zombies made up a lot of ground during me and Glen's little argument. We all take off running and realize we're running straight for a small town. We randomly pick a house and have to push extra hard to get inside the front door. It literally took all four of us. When we get inside we realize there was a piano blocking the door.

"Someone's in here." I whisper.

"Yeah we gathered that, Spencer." Carmen whispers back.

"Well." I shrug.

"How do you wanna handle this?" Ashley asks Carmen.

"Push that back Spencer and Glen." Carmen tells us, pointing at the piano we just moved from in front of the door. "Ashley you loaded?" Carmen turns to Ashley who nods and readies her bow.

"What do we do?" Glen asks.

"Stay here, if anyone comes from back there, yell. We're gonna check upstairs." Carmen tells us. Glen and I both nod.

"Who do you thinks in here?" I turn and ask Glen as Ashley and Carmen ascend the stairs.

"How am I supposed to know?" Glen asks with a shrug.

"I'm gonna punch you in the face." I tell him with a smile.

"I'd like to see you try." Glen retorts.

"Shut up." I punch him in the shoulder.

"Ow." He whispers and rubs his shoulder. "You're gonna pay for that." He adds.

"Nope." I shake my head and back up from him.

"Yup." He smiles and nods and starts to chase me around the living room.

"This is you two standing guard?" Carmen asks as her and Ashley come down the stairs.

"It was his/her fault!" Glen and I say at the same time, pointing to each other.

"Nice." Ashley smiles and comes to stand next to me.

"No one's here?" Glen asks confused.

"Guys!" Carmen yells up the stairs.

"Spenceeeeeeer!" Francisco and Jessica run down the stairs and jump into my arms.

"Oh my God!" I practically shout as I hug them both tightly. I see Rick, Jo, Santana and Jayden all walking down the stairs. Everyone with a smile except Rick.

"Spencer, Glen!" Jayden and Jo both say pulling us into a tight hug.

"How did you...when did..." I'm kinda at a loss for words right now if you can't tell.

"These woods have been crawling with walkers for days now. I think they're migrating from the city." Jo says.

"We got pushed this way and have been held up in this house for days." Jayden says as she kisses Carmen on the lips and hugs her tightly.

"Where's my daddy?" Francisco asks looking around. Oh yeah. I forgot Tim wasn't with us. Glen, Carmen and I all share a look while Jo and Francisco look at us, awaiting an answer.

"Well buddy your daddy, he um..."

"No." Jo shakes her head, interrupting me. "No, don't say it." She says and I can see the tears building in her eyes.

"Mom what's going on? Where's dad?" Francisco asks, becoming hysterical like his mother.

"Where is he? Where is my husband?" Jo asks raises her voice, startling everyone.

"Hey, hey." Ashley says rushing over to her. "He's with my friend Aiden who grew up around here. I'm sure they're fine. We just got separated that's all. I promise we'll go look for them at first daylight." Ashley says calmly and Jo nods her head.

See how impossibly good she is at everything?

"We were just about to start dinner." Santana says.

"Great. More mouths to feed." Rick pipes up. You know, I'm all for being respectful towards my elders and all that but seriously, Rick is pushing it. I'm ten seconds away from going ape shit on him.

"Oh no it's fine. I don't have to-"

"Yes you do!" I interrupt Ashley, who has come to stand next to me again. Ashley has saved my life twice so far... I say so far cause come on let's face it, she'll probably be saving it again sometime soon.

"That's right." Carmen agrees.

"Rick it's fine." Santana tries to tell her husband who huffs and stalks off upstairs.

"Don't worry about him. He has a stick up his ass." I lean over and whisper to Ashley. She stifles a laugh and Santana shoots us a look before walking upstairs.

Oops.

I guess she heard that.

Oh well.

Mental shrug.

She knows her husband is an asshole.

"We have a few canned goods we can add." Carmen says handing her backpack over to Jo.

"And I've got spices." Glen says cheerfully. Ashley and I both laugh at him as he hands his backpack to Jo as well.

"I got some medical supplies." I chime in. I don't want to seem like I didn't do my part on this scavenge.

"Great! We've been in need of some." Jo says taking my backpack from me. "Come on Jessica let me patch up that scratch.

"Oh, I can do it." Carmen says with a smile. I'm sure she's really missed her family.

"Okay." Jo forces a smile. I guess she's been kinda like the mother of the entire group with all of us gone. Carmen takes Jessica over to the couch.

"I gotta take a whiz." Glen says.

"Nice big bro." I say and shake my head at him. He shrugs and walks towards the back of the house.

"I'm gonna go get these opened and on the fire." Jo says.

"The fire?" I question cause we don't start fires in houses.

"It's in the basement. No worries. Rick made sure it was secure." Jo says with a smile to me before walking down some stairs, I'm assuming that led to the basement.

"It's really good to see you all again, Spence." Jayden says and hugs me.

"Good to see you all too." I squeeze her tightly.

"There are plenty of rooms. You guys can go right up and choose a room. There's four upstairs and three down here. Jo and Francisco have the first room upstairs on the right. Rick and Santana have the last one on the left. Jessica and I have the room through there." She says, pointing down the hallway behind us.

"I think we'll stay down here with you guys." I smile.

"Okay." She nods and squeezes my shoulder one more time before joining her girlfriend and daughter on the couch.

"Does she know you're-"

"Yeah." I nod.

"How?"

"I told her."

A smile escapes her lips before she says, "But I thought you didn't go around broadcasting your sexuality to the world." She finishes, quirking a brow.

"You're more than welcome to sleep upstairs you know." I say.

"Did you just assume that I wanted to share a room with you in the first place." She counters.

Good one.

"Then don't." I reply nonchalantly with a shrug and walk off to find my room.

"I never said I wouldn't though." I hear her call out behind me as she jogs to catch up with me.

That's what I thought.

We ended up choosing a room opposite of Jayden and Carmen's room. We settled into our beds and waited for Jo to tell us that dinner was ready.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." She nods.

"You said you have a little sister right?" I ask and she nods.

"Kyla." She says and smiles.

"How are you doing this knowing she's out there right now?" I question. Cause I know I'd be a mess if I lost Glen, especially for days.

"I really miss her." Ashley says through a sigh.

"I'm sorry." Is the only reasonable thing I can think of to say.

"You didn't lose her, Spence." She says and her eyes go wide for a moment before she adds. "I mean Spencer." Aww she gave me a nickname. I'm gonna pretend like I didn't catch that.

"I know, but I'm still sorry. I don't know what I would do if I lost Glen." I say honestly.

"Yeah." Is all she says. "Can I tell you something now?" She asks me after a moment.

"Yeah."

"I know-"

"Dinners ready." Glen peeks his head in our room and says, interrupting whatever Ashley was going to say.

"Thanks Glen." I say through gritted teeth. He smiles and leaves.

"Guess we should get out there." Ashley says.

"Yeah, guess so." I say as we both get up and join the rest of the group for dinner.


	12. Girl Talk

Hello all. Answer to a few questions: 22 prewritten chapters could definitely mean an update everyday but that's really up to you guys and well... my brain and how fast it can continue to give me chapter ideas lol. I have no idea how zombie digestive systems work lol. I'm just going by what I've seen on TV and Movies...they seem to never get full on their sooooo... here's the next update and maybe it'll answer more questions you have or it'll just bring about more questions lol...

* * *

"_Dad you can't be serious! Everyone is going!" I try reason with my father. _

"_I don't care Spencer. You're fourteen years old, you're not going to a high school party." My dad tells me sternly._

"_But I'M in high school dad!" I almost shout. Seriously, I love my dad to death but sometimes he can be incorrigible._

"_Arthur, let her go." My mom says from the kitchen._

"_Absolutely not, Paula! My high school freshmen daughter will not be going to a party thrown by upperclassmen. It just won't happen." My dad tells my mom, shaking his head._

"_Glen will be there." I try._

"_Yes, Glen will be there." My mother says._

"_Yeah dad, I'll look out for her." Glen says, looking up from his PS Vista._

"_Nope." My dad says again and shakes his head._

"_Ugh." I sigh out frustrated. _

"_Arthur you're crowding again." My mom says as I stomp over to the couch and sit down next to Glen._

"_With good reason." Is my dad's reply._

"_This sucks." I say to Glen._

"_Yeah, I'm sorry. I really thought he'd let you go if I said I was going." Glen shrugs. "Lindsey going?" He looks over to me and asks._

"_Yeah." I nod and roll my eyes. I really wanted to hang with her outside of my families garage and school._

"_Sucks." Glen shakes his head._

"_I get the whole, 'I'm his only daughter thing', but he's gonna have to let me go at some point." _

"_Yeah..." Glen says standing up from the couch. "That won't be anytime soon." _

"_I gathered." I say and sigh. _

_This year is gonna totally suck._

–

"So Ashley, how'd you become apart of our little group here?" Jo asks with a smile as we eat dinner.

"Actually, I'm not really..." Ashley starts, I immediately turn my head, extremely interested in what she's about to say. She notices me looking at her and clears her throat before starting again. "We met in a house in Pine Nut, Spencer and Glen here came in guns blazing on me and my friend Aiden." She says and chuckles.

"That's our Spencer and Glen for you." Jayden says and laughs along with Ashley.

I don't see what's so funny.

"So is it just you and this Aiden person?" Rick asks in a forceful tone with narrowed eyes.

"Um...no." Ashley replies after a moment.

"Care to elaborate." He snaps and Ashley gives me a confused look. I shrug. Ricks a douche but he's never been this abrasive.

"It was about twenty of us. Aiden and I went out on a scavenge and when we got back most were dead and the rest were... gone." Ashley says quietly. I know that she's thinking about her little sister being out in the woods without her or worse...dead.

"How many men were in your group?" Rick asks.

Seriously... what the hell?

"I think that's enough talk about her group honey, how about we just eat." Santana turns to her husband and says.

Great freaking idea Santana!

"I think he's threatened by her." Glen leans over and whispers in my ear. Everyone around us are chitchatting and or eating.

"She hasn't even done anything." I shake my head.

"Yeah well, you know how he is."

"He's a jerk." I say.

"Agreed." Glen nods. "Hey." Glen leans back over to me and whispers. "You think we'll find Aiden and Tim?" He asks.

"Who are you more worried about?" I question my brother with a raised brow.

"Well, Tim is like a father to us and Aiden is..." He trails off and smiles.

"You really like him don't you?" I question him through narrowed eyes.

"I don't know." He shrugs and smiles wider. "I think I might." He says.

"Glen." I say.

"Yeah?"

"You totally love him." I say and bump shoulders with him. He doesn't say anything, he just smiles and goes back to eating his food. Out the corner of my eye I see Ashley try to hide a smile.

–

"I'm starting to get the feeling that Rick doesn't like me very much." Ashley says with a sly smile as we settle into bed.

"Yeah, Rick doesn't like anyone." I shake my head and return a smile.

"Why is that?" She questions.

"I don't know." I turn and lay on my back. "He was like that when we met him." I add with a shrug.

"Oh." She says and I can hear the bed she's laying on move. I glance over to her and see she's in the same position as me now. "What were your parent's like?" She asks after a moment.

"Amazing." I don't hesitate to say. Cause they were. But I know she's looking for something more. "My dad was a bit protective." I say and can't help but smile. "He wouldn't let me leave the house without knowing where I was going, who I was with, what time I'd be home. You know...typical father of a teenage daughter stuff. My mom was the complete opposite. She was protective, don't get me wrong, but she knows what it was like to be a teenage girl so she wasn't as bad as my dad." I say and smile at the memory of them.

"They sound amazing." Ashley barely whispers.

"They were." I assure her. "What about your parent's, what were they like?"

"They worked a lot so..." She trails off and her tone causes me to turn and look at her.

"They were never around?" I question.

"Not really no." She says. She's still looking up at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry." I say.

She turns and faces me with a smile. "You apologize a lot." She says.

"Habit I guess." I say with a shrug.

"Hmmph." She says before turning back on her back.

"What?" I question with a smile.

"Nothing." She shakes her head. "We should probably turn that lantern out. Don't wanna waste the gas we have." She says in a monotone voice.

Okay I'm confused.

Did I just do something wrong?

I reach down beside me and turn off the lantern.

"Spencer." She calls me after a few moments.

"Yeah?"

"Goodnight."

–

"Why are you staring at me?" I turn over to Ashley's bed and see her smiling at me.

"You're interesting when you sleep." She replies, her smile growing wider.

"Oh God, I wasn't talking was I?" I ask and I can feel my cheeks burning red.

"Maybe." She says, her smile growing impossibly wider.

"What'd I say?" I ask and then bury my head in the covers. It must have been something embarrassing by the way she's looking at me right now.

"You know..." She trails off and looks up at the ceiling. "A little of this a little of that." She adds in a sing song voice.

"Ashley just tell me."

"You may have said my name a couple of times..." She pauses and turns and faces me. "...followed by a few moans." She adds, with a smirk.

"Oh my God, no!" I say thoroughly embarrassed.

"Heeeeey. Don't sweat it." She says trying to hold back a laugh. "Happens all the time." She adds with a wink.

"I'm gonna go get freshened up." I say, getting up from the bed. Avoiding Ashley's gaze at all cost.

"Okay. I'll be here...you know...waiting if you wanna make that dream happen." She says and then burst into laughter.

I honestly can't tell if she's joking or not.


	13. The Search

Another update :) and maybe another later or tomorrow morning...

* * *

"_I think we should at least try to search for mom and dad. I mean, what if they're still out there?" I ask Glen as we trek through the woods._

"_Spencer it's been over two months since they've been gone. We have to accept the fact that..."_

"_You don't know that Glen!" I almost shout. We don't know what happened to our parents. They could be out there searching for us right now. "What if after we left that cabin mom and dad came looking for us there?" I question._

"_Spencer would you just stop it! Mom and dad are gone and we just have to accept that!" He screams. I think this is the first time Glen has ever raised his voice at me. _

"_Don't say that." I tell him as the tears well in my eyes. I stop walking and sit down on the cold hard ground. Reality wants to set in. Everything that Glen is saying I know is true. Our parent's are dead because if they weren't they would've come back for us a long time ago._

"_I'm sorry baby sis, but you needed to hear that." He says bending down in front of me. "We're alone now. It's just us. We gotta look out for each other." He tells me and I nod._

"_Okay."_

"_Come on, let's keep moving." He says, helping me up from the ground. _

–

"We'll search the perimeter, about two miles or so in each direction." Ashley instructs the group. She knows the area the best so she's taking point on the search.

"We're gonna have to make time to scavenge too." Carmen says. "We're running low on everything." She adds.

"We'll figure it out." Ashley nods and loads her bow with an arrow. "You ready?" She turns to me and asks, just above a whisper.

"Yeah." I nod.

"Okay, let's do this guys." Glen says cocking his gun to check if there's a bullet in the chamber.

"We'll be back before sundown." Carmen tells the people we're leaving behind for the second time.

Rick scoffs and says, "We've heard that before." Complete with eye roll.

"What a douche." Ashley leans over and whispers in my ear. I can't help but laugh.

"I love you." Carmen says to Jayden then kisses her. Then bends down and kisses her daughter.

"Be careful mommy." Jessica tells Carmen.

"I will sweetie." Carmen replies, kissing Jessica on the forehead again.

"We need to head out." Glen says.

"We'll be back shortly." I add for no reason...I just didn't want to be the only one that didn't say any encouraging words to the group. Ashley, Carmen, Glen and I all head out of the house, guns locked and loaded...well in Ashley's case...bow locked and loaded.

"Should we split up, we'd cover much more ground that way. Ashley with me and Spencer with Glen?" Carmen suggests.

"No!" Ashley and I almost scream at the exact same time then look at each other. Out the corner of my eye I can see both Carmen and Glen smiling at us. I'm not sure why Ashley doesn't want to split up, but I have my reasons.

"I just don't want anyone else to get lost." I say after a moment. That's not even close to the real reason. I mean, it's important but not what I was just thinking in that moment.

"Yeah." Ashley agrees with a head nod. "Then we'd have to spend more time looking for people when we should be scavenging." She adds and swallows thickly.

"Right." Glen says with a head nod and sly smile. Clearly he's on to us.

"Shit!" We hear Carmen yell.

"What is-" My sentence dies in my throat when I see a herd of walkers headed straight towards us.

"Where the fuck did they just come from?" Glen asks, shaking his head.

"They smelled your funk." I try to joke. Clearly not the right time.

"Classic." Ashley says and laughs as she readies her bow.

See!

Someone appreciates my sense of humor.

"What's the move here Carmen?" Glen asks shaking his head and rolling his eyes at me.

"We can't take them all on and our little plan yesterday backfired. We're gonna just have to outrun them." She says.

"That's no fun." Ashley says with a smile beside me.

"What do you suggest?" Carmen asks, checking the clip on her gun.

"That's about ten or so. I can take out at least five on my own. If we don't take them out we're gonna be running from them all day." Ashley says.

"She's right." Glen agrees.

"Okay. You take point." Carmen says and a cocky grin appears at Ashley's lips.

"With pleasure." She says and I swear she winks at me before aiming her bow and taking out three walkers in one shot.

"Fuuuuuuck." I breathe out.

Is anyone else turned on here?

"Nice shot!" Glen exclaims. Ashley wordlessly reloads her bow and takes out two more and then reloads and takes out another.

"You guys can jump in here at anytime." She turns to us and says. We all break out of our daze and mumble an 'oh' before running towards the walkers with the intent of shooting them all in the head but they all drop to the ground before we get to them.

"What the hell?" I ask as we turn back around to Ashley and see her shaking her head and shrugging like she doesn't know what just happened either.

"What just happened?" Glen asks as we stop in front of the walkers and examine them. "Spence you see this?" He turns to me and asks.

"Yeah." I nod with an open mouth. "I've only ever seen one person shoot like this and that's-"

"Dad." Glen says cutting me off. But he didn't say in realization of what I was going to say, he said it like he was in shock.

"Glen." I say, still examining the dead walkers on the ground.

"Spencer." He says in a tone I can't read.

"What?" I ask.

"Look." He says and I look up at him. He looks like he's seen a ghost. I follow his line of sight.

My mouth drops open. He looks like he's seen a ghost because he has... "Mom, dad." I breathe out as they walk towards us with a group of about six other people, including Aiden and Tim.

Is this real life?


	14. Ghosts Of The Past

I'm so glad everyone enjoyed the last chapter and is happy about mama and papa Carlin being alive. :) I hope you all enjoy this chapter as well. Some of you guessed it a few chapters back but I didn't want to give anything away. Love you all and keep leaving those reviews because I love reading them. I should have another update in the morning.

* * *

"_We don't mean any harm, we'll lower out weapons." A tall man says to Glen and I as we point our weapons at them. They're the first people we've seen since we left the cabin and Glen and I aren't sure if it's safe to trust anyone at this point. _

"_We don't want any trouble, we just want to pass." Glen tells the man, lowering his weapon. I see a little boy, I'm assuming is the man's son, peek from around his dad's legs at me._

"_Are you two all alone?" The man asks._

"_Yeah." Glen and I both nod._

"_You both can't be a day over seventeen. Where are your parents?" The tall man asks and Glen and I both share a look but don't answer him._

"_Did the virus get them?" The woman, standing next to the man asks. We shake our heads. "Zombies?" She questions. _

"_Yeah." Glen and I nod._

"_We're sorry." She says and looks down at the little boy._

"_I'm Tim." The man says, walking closer to us with his hand out for us to shake. "This is my wife Jo and our son Francisco." He adds as we shake his hand._

"_I'm Glen and this is my little sister Spencer."_

"_Nice to meet you both." Tim says. "How old are you both?" He asks after a moment._

"_I just turned sixteen and Spence just turned fifteen." Glen answers._

"_And how long have you two been on your own?" Jo asks._

"_I don't know." Glen shrugs. "Three months maybe." _

"_That's a long time for two people as young as you two to be on their own. Especially in a world like this." Tim says._

"_We've been making it." I pipe up. Glen and I are no longer babies. We've been out here surviving everyday with no parents. _

"_I see." Tim nods and smiles. Everyone gets quiet for a moment before Glen breaks the silence. _

"_Well we'll just be on our way now." _

"_Why don't you two stay with us for the night and if you still want to leave in the morning my wife and I will be happy to give you some supplies and send you on your way." Tim says. Glen and I look at each other briefly, having a conversation with our eyes that only a brother and sister can. _

"_Sure." I nod._

"_Great." Tim says and smiles as we all take a seat around the fire._

–

"That's my group." Ashley comes up next to me and says. Wait huh? "Kyla!" Ashley practically yells as a small brunette appears from behind my mom. She is limping towards us as Ashley runs and scoops her up.

"Spencer that's-"

"Yeah." I cut Glen off. Neither of us have moved. I think we're both still trying to figure out if this is a dream or not. Our parents walk towards us with a smile, before our mom takes off in a full sprint.

"Oh shit." Glen says suddenly.

"What?" I turn and asks him as our parent's get closer.

"I gotta tell mom and dad that I'm gay." He says and rolls his eyes. I can't help but giggle at him. We haven't seen our parents in over seven months and he's worried about them being upset that he's gay.

"I'm sure they'll be fine with it Glen." I shake my head and smile at him as he visibly releases a deep breath.

"My children." Our mother breathes out as she reaches us. I guess she's in disbelief too.

"Mom." I say as the tears begin to well in my eyes. I can't believe this is happening right now.

"Get over here and give us a hug." My dad says and neither Glen or I hesitate to do so.

"We've missed you guys so much." My mom says hugging us tighter.

"We thought you were dead." Glen says and I can tell he's about to cry.

"We got lost trying to lead the walkers away from you two, we've been searching for you ever since." My dad says.

"I told you." I tell Glen and punch him in the arm.

"Yeah you did baby sis." Glen smiles and wraps his arms around me tighter.

"We should get back guys." Tim says. Aiden and I got plenty of supplies.

"Amazing." Carmen says shaking her head and smiling. "Of course you would be out scavenging." She adds with an eye roll.

"Glen." I hear Aiden say from behind my parent's. Glen pulls back from our group hug, smiles at our parents before running and hugging Aiden.

"What's that about?" My dad turns to me and asks. My mother just smiles. Maybe she already knows.

You know what they say, mothers know everything.

"I'll let Glen tell you." I say with a smile.

"Are you guys held up in a house somewhere around here?" Tim asks us and I can't help but give him a warm hug before answering. Over these past months Tim has been like a father to Glen and I.

"About a mile that way." I point in the direction we just came from.

"Let's head that way. We're sitting ducks out here in the middle of the road." Tim says and Carmen leads the way back to house we just left.

"I'll be right back." I tell my parent's then run to catch up with Ashley. "Hey." I say once I get next to her.

"Hey." She smiles at me. "Those your parent's huh?" She asks.

"Yeah." I nod, glancing back at my parent's just to make sure they're still there.

"This is my little sister, Kyla, Kyla this is Spencer." Ashley introduces us and we exchange pleasantries. "Ky could you give us a second?" She asks her little sister who gives her a smile then limps up to a man closer to the front of the group.

"When you said that this was your group did you mean-"

"Yeah." She nods and smiles. "Your parent's have been apart of our group for over two months now. I don't know how I didn't put two and two together. You and Glen look exactly like them. Maybe if you would have told me your last name I could of guessed sooner." She adds with a smirk.

"I thought they were dead. After months of searching and nothing...I just knew that they were dead. I cried myself to sleep every night for months." I stop and shake my head. Willing myself not to cry. "But they're fine. This entire time they've been okay. And they've been looking for us." I finish and Ashley nods.

"When we met up with them they told us they were looking for their two children, we promised to help them look. We'd been doing that actually, until we got separated."

"This is just all too much." I say.

"What?" Ashley questions with a look of confusion on her face.

"I just...I can't believe we found them." I say and shake my head. I can't help the smile that appears on my lips when Ashley grabs my hand that was at my side and holds it in hers.

"Just because the world has turned to ugly, doesn't mean that good things don't still happen." She smiles and releases my hand. "I'm gonna go..." She trails off and nods in the direction of her sister.

"Okay." I nod as she jogs to catch up with her sister. I slow down to allow my mom and dad to catch up with me.

"Is Ashley a friend of yours?" My mom asks with a smile and she wraps her arm around me.

"Yeah, but she's just a friend mom." I say and shake my head.

"Better be." My dad says sternly but smiles right after.

Some things never change...


	15. Strength In Numbers

shall I post another one today? I couuuuld :) Thanks for all the kind reviews. You guys are awesome.

* * *

"_When are we gonna sleep daddy?" Francisco asks his father for the third time. We've been walking for what seems like forever now but I don't want to seem like a child so I'm fighting through my fatigue. _

"_We're almost there buddy." Tim tells his son. _

"_Mom." Francisco whines out._

"_You want me to carry you bud?" Glen asks the little boy. Francisco nods enthusiastically as Glen throws him over his shoulders onto his back._

"_Glen you really don't have to-"  
_

_"It's cool." Glen waves Tim off. "I don't mind." _

"_You hear that?" I ask Tim as we all stop, we hear leaves ruffling around us. Glen place Francisco back on the ground and readies his gun._

"_Walkers?" Jo asks her husband, pulling Francisco to stand behind her. _

"_I don't know." He shakes his head as the movements grow louder and closer. _

"_What do we do?" I ask. _

"_Everyone get down." He tells us and we all kneel. "Shh." He says putting a finger to his mouth then using that same finger to point in the direction of the movement. All our eyes focus on the spot. A few seconds later a woman appears._

"_Don't shoot." She says raising her hands. Behind her is another woman and a little girl. "We don't mean any harm, we're just migrating away from town." She says and Tim looks at her with narrowed eyes before he stands. We all follow suit._

"_Who are you?" Tim asks the woman._

"_I'm Carmen." The woman says pointing to herself. "This is my girlfriend Jayden and our daughter Jessica." She adds._

"_I'm Tim." Tim says visibly relaxing a bit. "This is my wife Jo and our son Francisco." He introduces his family._

"_I'm Glen and this is my sister Spencer." Glen introduces us. _

"_Nice to meet you all." Carmen smiles. _

"_You're headed east?" Tim asks._

"_Yeah." Carmen nods. "The city is crawling with walkers." _

"_Yeah, we know." Glen says._

"_We were headed east as well." Tim says. "You guys are welcome to join our group if you'd like." He offers and a smile appears at Carmen's lips. She looks back at her girlfriend who smiles then turns back to us. _

"_We'd love to." _

–

"We're back." Carmen announces as we enter the house. Everyone comes downstairs to greet us.

Rick rolls his eyes when he see's how much our group has grown. "Great." He sighs. "More mouths to feed." He adds. I roll my eyes at him and walk over by the wall and sit down.

"Tim!" Jo says running to her husband and hugging him.

"Daaaaaadddddy!" Francisco shouts.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Tim chuckles as he hugs his family. "We just got separated that's all." He adds and kisses his wife then bends down and kisses his son's hair.

"You had us worried sick." Jo says.

"My apologies." Tim says, smiling lovingly at his wife.

Everyone finishes greeting everyone. I've learned that the names of the three other people in Ashley's group are: Jackie, Leo, and Owen.

"What happened to you?" I hear Ashley asks Kyla as she examines her sisters swollen ankle. We're all getting settled into the house, now there's a total of eighteen people. Groups this large don't usually last long. Too many people to look after. I'm not sure how long we're all gonna stay together but I'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts.

"Running from the walkers that attacked the group. I tripped over a branch." Kyla says.

"Nice." Ashley says and laughs.

"I can take care of that for her if you'd like." Carmen says from the stairs.

"Please." Ashley nods.

"It's no biggie, Ash. She doesn't need to-"

"Hush Kyla. Thanks Carmen." Ashley smiles and appreciative smile as Carmen comes over and examines Kyla's ankle. Ashley looks happy and worried all at the same time. I'm guessing she's happy she has her sister back but worried that Kyla's really hurt.

Her being all big sisterly is oddly a turn on.

"Spencer." My mother calls my name as I stare at Ashley. I'm pretty sure I'm salivating.

"Hmm?" I answer absent-mindedly.

"Are you sure there's nothing you want to tell us?" She asks and I shake my head.

"Nope nothing." I say, continuing to stare at Ashley who glances at me and gives me a smile.

"Spencer." My dad says in that fatherly tone he gets when he knows something is up. I turn and look at him and both him and my mother are smiling.

"Ashley's a nice young woman." My mother says.

"And damn good with an arrow." My dad adds. Was this they're way of telling me it's okay to date her?

"She's just a friend." I tell my parent's again.

"Right! A friend." My mom says and they both nod.

"I'll be right back." I shake my head and smile at my parents. They both say an okay and as I make my way over to Glen my father kisses my mother sweetly. They both look happy...happy to have found us and happy to still have each other. It's amazing how in a world like this my parent's marriage is still as strong as ever.

"Heeeeey baby sis." Glen says once I reach him and Aiden who are sitting in the corner on the floor.

"When are you gonna tell them?" I question him with a raised brow.

"I don't know." He shrugs. "Why?"

"Could you give us a sec, Aiden?" I ask and he nods and goes to join Ashley and Kyla on the couch.

"What's wrong?"

"They won't get off my back about Ashley." I sigh out.

"Aww. Well, you two are pretty obvious." Glen says and shrugs.

"But nothing is going on." I try.

"Riiiight." He says and winks at me.

"Oh my God." I say and shake my head. "Whatever." I add as I get up and walk back over to my parents.

"So..." My mom starts with a smile. "You and Ash-"

"Who's hungry. I think we should start lunch!" I say jumping up from my spot on the floor.

–

"Are you happy to have your sister back?" I ask Ashley as we eat our food. Her and I are sitting in a corner off to ourselves, Kyla fell asleep before the food was done but Ashley saved her some for when she wakes up. Glen and Aiden are off God knows where doing I don't know what and my parent's are in the room Ashley and I slept in last night enjoying their lunch. Rick and Santana opted to eat lunch upstairs in their room as well as Jo and Tim. Jessica and Francisco are playing a game in the dinning room and everyone else is just scattered about chitchatting.

"Extremely." She nods and smiles and I can't help but smile too. The joy she gets when she talks about her sister is amazing. It's like the bond Glen and I have. The bond that grew closer when we thought we were the only family we had left in this world. "What about you, you happy that you have your parent's again?" She asks and I can tell this isn't a subject she wants to go into deeply. I know the pain of losing a parent. Or at least I thought I did.

"I still can't believe this is real." I answer honestly. She nods and forces a smile and I decide to drop the subject.

"Kyla told me to tell you that you're cute." She says after a moment of silence. I turn to her with a raised brow.

"Is she-"

"No." She cuts me off shaking her head. "She just likes to pry into my life." Ashley says with a smile.

"I know the feeling." I say eating some more rice.

"She seems to think I have feelings for you." She says quietly.

I glance at her as she puts another spoon full of rice in her mouth, avoiding my gaze.

"Do you?" I ask just as quietly. I watch her as she swallows the food in her mouth and then turns to me. She opens her mouth to speak but is interrupted.

"Ash." Her sis Kyla calls out to her from the couch. Ashley gives me an apologetic look before getting up and attending to her sister.

Perfect freaking timing...


	16. Extra, Extra, Hear All About It

Sorry, I wanted to get this out last night but didn't have the time. :) Hope you all love it.

* * *

"_Why aren't they broadcasting any alerts anymore?" I ask Glen as he turns the knobs on the small radio we scavenged from a house._

"_Spence you saw how bad the city was. I doubt there's any government left at all." He tells me, still messing around with the radio. _

"_But they've been broadcasting that emergency alert for months why stop all of a sudden?" I question._

"_I don't know." He shrugs._

"_Glen..." I say quietly._

"_Yeah?" He turns to me and asks. I'm sure my face is telling him everything I'm feeling right now. I'm happy to be alive but I'm scared that Glen and I are the only one's left. "It's gonna be fine baby sis." He whispers in my ear and hugs me tightly. _

"_Are we alone in this world?" I ask and Glen gives me a pained look._

"_I don't know." He shrugs again. "What I do know is that you have me, and I'm not going anywhere. I promise." He adds and kisses my forehead. _

–

"Mom, Dad! Look what we found." Jessica and Francisco come running from the basement with a huge antique looking thing.

"Oh wow, a Tombstone radio." Tim says taking the radio from them. "I haven't seen one of these since I was kid." He adds examining it.

"Does it work?" Jo asks her husband.

"I don't know." He shrugs. "Lets find out." He turns a couple knobs on the radio and we hear static. "Wow it still works!" He exclaims. He turns a few more knobs and we hear a voice.

"Is that..." Jo trails off as the voice booms from the radio.

"This is an emergency alert. This is an emergency alert. Do not enter the city. I repeat do not enter the city. Survivors should head east towards Atlanta. I repeat survivors should head east towards Atlanta." Then the voice stops. Everyone in the room is silent as Tim frantically turns the knobs on the radio to try and get the voice back.

"What does this mean?" Jayden asks from the stairs.

"Nothing!" Rick shouts. "It means absolutely nothing. We're not gonna sit here and believe that some voice on a two hundred year old radio has the answer to all our problems. Oh head east, so we should pack up and go, just like that." Rick says and scoffs.

"I hate to say it, but Ricks right." Tim agrees. "We don't even know how old this message is. It could be just some tape in a building somewhere on a loop or something." Tim says.

"No." I shake my head, remembering me and Glen's time in the woods right after we went to the city and saw it'd been overrun with walkers. "Glen and I were keeping up with those alerts, they stopped completely after a while." I tell everyone.

"So you think this is new?" Carmen asks me.

"Has to be." I say and everyone breaks out into chatter. My mother and father both place a hand on my shoulder as Tim tells everyone to calm down.

"What should we do?" Ashley asks from somewhere beside me.

"I think we should take a vote on what we want to do." Tim suggests.

"This is bullshit!" Ricks shouts. Everyone rolls their eyes at him. We're used to this by now. "How can we even consider this?" He asks.

"What are we doing here, Rick?" I speak up. My father grips my shoulder a little tighter. "I mean, we're constantly running. If there's a chance, even a small chance that there's shelter, food, water somewhere...I'm willing to take that chance."

"And risk all our lives?" Ricks asks forcefully.

"You don't have to go." I hear Ashley say.

Rick scoffs and folds his arms across his chest.

"Spencer's right." Carmen says. "We're running in circles here and the walkers are migrating this way and fast..."

"How would we even get to Atlanta?" Rick questions.

"Cars." I say. "There's a heap of them on the highway."

"Gas?" Rick asks.

"We can siphon it out of a bunch of cars that way we wouldn't have to stop often." Tim says.

"We'd need a hell of a lot of cars." Aiden says and chuckles.

"Four will do." Tim says.

"So we're doing this?" My father asks from beside me.

"This will take a lot of preparation. The highway is at least a day away on foot." Glen says.

"We should scavenge tomorrow. Get as much food and water as we can." Ashley says.

"I can't believe we're actually considering doing this!" Rick says throwing his hands in the air.

"Well what do you suggest we do, Rick?" Ashley asks him in a pointed tone.

"Not this." Is all he says.

"Heck of plan." Ashley retorts. I stifle a laugh.

"Maybe we should take a vote." I suggest.

"That's a great idea, Spencer." Tim says standing up. I turn to Ashley and she gives me a smile. "Let's take a vote. Everyone in favor of heading east raise your hand." Tim says to the group and everyone but Santana, Rick and a guy from Ashley's group...Owen raises their hand.

"Then it's settled." Carmen says. "We'll scavenge all day tomorrow and head out the day after at dusk."

Everyone nods in agreement except Rick who scoffs and stomps off upstairs.

"Someone's not happy." Ashley comes up next to me and whispers in my ear. Ahh! Where did she just come from.

"Y..yeah." I stumble out. She startled me...give me a break.

"We should all probably get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow." Tim suggests. Everyone heads off to their designated sleeping areas and since Ashley and I gave our room to my mom and dad her, Glen, Aiden and myself decided to share the basement.

–

"Are you nervous about leaving?" Ashley asks me from our side of the basement. We put up a make-shift partition to separate us from Glen and Aiden. The noises they're making right now are just...you don't even wanna know.

"Not really." I shake my head. "There's nothing here anymore. I think if there's something out there...a place that's better than this, then we should go there. No questions asks." I add.

"I'm a little scared." Ashley admits.

"Why?" I ask.

"I don't know." She shrugs. "I just have a bad feeling I guess." She says and lays down. I lay down and face her.

"We're gonna be fine." I tell her quietly.

"Wow that's amazing!" Aiden says from the other side of the partition and then moans. Ashley makes a gag face then we both laugh quietly.

"They never stop." She says.

"I know." I shake my head and giggle. We both get quiet and stare at each other. "Well... goodnight." I add after a moment and give her a small smile then close my eyes. I can feel her eyes still watching me but I don't dare open mine again. My stomach is doing somersaults as I feel her body shift towards me. I can feel her breath on my skin and my breath hitches when she places a barely there kiss on my forehead.

"To answer your question from earlier... I do think I could fall for you." She barely whispers then says goodnight and I feel her body shift away from me.

It takes everything in me to hold in a smile.


	17. Small Sacrifices

Another chapter for you awesome amazing people. And just so you guys know...I don't mind you going back and reviewing old chapters if I'm posting to fast for you. I still would love to know what you thought about a chapter you missed. :)

* * *

"_Tim the children are exhausted and it's cold." Jo tells her husband._

_"We need to find shelter or we're going to freeze to death." Tim says._

_It's the dead of winter and we've been running from walkers all day. I don't know why I thought because we're in Nevada shit doesn't get cold but fuck does it! I mean, it doesn't get very cold very often but when it does...you try running in this weather. See how it affects your lungs._

"_Dad I'm really tired." Francisco whines._

"_I know son, but we gotta keep moving." He tells Francisco who drops his head but keeps running nonetheless._

"_There's a house up there." Glen says pointing to his right._

"_Go!" Tim says and we all start running in that direction. Well everyone except me. Why is that you ask? _

_Well because my ass just hit the ground with a loud umph._

"_What the-" I look down and see two bodies on the ground. One a woman and the other a man. "Ahhh!" I scream and scoot away from them quickly. Everyone stops running and comes back to me. Glen made it to me first. I wordlessly pointed to the bodies on the ground. "Are they dead?" I ask a moment later as my brother and Tim examine them._

"_They will be if they don't get inside." Tim says. "Help me with this." He tells Glen. They pick up the man and carry him towards the house. Carmen, Jayden, Jo and I all stare down at the woman on the ground. _

"_Come on." Carmen says lifting her up. It took all four of us to carry the tiny woman to the house._

"_Mom, are they gonna die?" Jessica asks Jayden._

"_I don't know honey." Is her reply. We throw as many blankets on the two people as we can find in the house and just wait...either for them to die or wake up._

"_Ugnh mmm." The man moves. Those sound like zombie noises to me, I think to myself and jump up from my spot next to them, gun in hand._

"_Spencer he's not a zombie." Tim says chuckling, and I lower my weapon._

"_Well..." I say and shrug._

"_Where am I?" The guy asks, looking around at us._

"_We found you laying outside on the ground. We brought you and that woman inside." I say and point to the woman on the other side of him._

"_My wife." He says turning around to her. "Santana honey." He shakes her and she stirs._

"_Hmmm?" She asks, clearly tired. _

"_These people saved our lives." He says and looks around at us appreciatively._

"_Wow." Santana breathes out. "I thought we were gonna-"_

"_Well we're not now." The man interrupts his wife."Thank you all so much." The man says. "I'm Rick." He adds after a moment._

–

"Why is that Rick guy even apart of your group? He's a major ass." Ashley says as we keep watch outside the house Tim, Carmen, Aiden and Glen are scavenging.

"He wasn't so bad at first. We found them alone and cold one day in the winter. It'd gotten really bad and we felt bad for them, so Tim decided to take them in. I think he's regretting that choice now." I saw and laugh and Ashley joins in. We finish our laughter with a sigh and she smiles at me. "Last night..." I start after a moment. Her demeanor changes. She looks sorta embarrassed.

"I'm sorry." She says. "I don't know what came over me." She adds quickly, moving a bit away from me.

"Don't be." I shake my head as she glances at me.

"I am though. I overstepped my-"

"You didn't do anything I didn't want you to." I cut her off. She smiles and looks down at the ground. I think she is the first time I've ever seen shed her cocky and confident demeanor.

"I'm surprised your parents let you out of their sight. If you were my daughter, after losing you I wouldn't ever again." She shakes her head.

"It took a lot of convincing." I smile. "I told them that the entire time they were gone, Glen and I have been taking care of ourselves. No need for it to change." I shrug.

"You're not excited?" She asks a bit confused.

"I am." I nod. "I love my parents and I'm glad they're back but I don't want things to go back to to the way they were before the virus."

"Why not?" Ashley questions.

"My dad was a bit of a control freak, remember?" I say with a smile and she nods.

"Only because he loves you so much." She says.

"Loves to tell me what to do?" I counter.

"Maybe." She smiles.

"Let's head out." Glen says coming out of the house, walking past us.

"Good stuff?" I ask as we follow behind him and everyone else exits the house behind us.

"Tons." Aiden smiles and tosses Ashley a bag.

"What's this?" She turns and asks him.

"That stuff." He says with narrowed eyes at her, all cryptic like.

Ashley peeks into the bag and says a quick 'oh' before closing it back up and throwing it over her shoulder. She gives me a small smile before turning her attention in front of us. I contemplate asking her what's in the bag but I decide against being nosy right now cause there's a shitload of walkers ahead of us.

"Shit!" Tim half yells. "Can we have just one good day?" He asks and I know it's rhetorical but I answer it anyway.

"And miss out on all this zombie fun? Really Tim?" I say and he just laughs and shakes his head at me.

"Let's break left." Aiden says.

"What play you calling, wait is this an audible?" Ashley turns and asks her friend with a grin.

Smart, sexy, handy and funny.

Waaaaaaaay too much for me to handle right now. And I let out an involuntary moan.

I swear I didn't mean to.

"Spencer you okay over there?" Glen asks with a smirk. I really wanna punch him in the face right now. I look at Ashley and she smiles before looking down.

"Go to hell." I say jumping up and hitting him.

"Why did you just jump to punch him?" Ashley questions through giggles.

"Mortal combat shit." Is my reply.

"Oh my God, I loved that game!" Ashley exclaims.

"You know sometimes I forget you guys are all teenagers." Tim says shaking his head.

"If we're done with that, can we run from those walkers headed this way now?" Carmen asks with a smile.

"Annnnnnnd break." Aiden, Ashley, Glen and I all say clapping our hands together then taking off in the direction Aiden suggested. It's like we've all been friends forever.

"Into the house on your right!" Tim yells from behind us. We all go into the house.

"Clear the rooms." Tim says once he enters behind us. The four 'teenagers' head upstairs while Carmen and Tim clear the downstairs.

"We'll check those rooms down there." Aiden says in a whisper, pointing down the hall.

"Yeah, I'll go with." Glen pipes up.

"I'm sure." I say and shake my head. If he wants to call me out on my sporadic moaning I'm gonna call his ass out. He fakes a smile then pulls Aiden's grinning self down the hall. "I'm over those two." I turn to Ashley and say.

"It's new and I'm sure it's been a while for the both of them. They'll get past this phase." Ashley smiles then her face turns serious. "Ready." She asks, standing in front of a door.

"Mhm." I nod. She readies her bow then slowly opens the door. There's a walker sitting on the floor eating what I'm guessing used to be the family's pet dog. A Great Dane it looks like. The walker, who's probably the owner of said dog, is too distracted to notice us coming in. Ashley lifts her bow and readies it to shoot before turning to me with a smile. "What?" I question.

"Ever stabbed one of these in the head with a knife?" She whispers.

"No." I shake my head.

"Here." She says and hands me a knife that was on her belt clip. "Do it." She nudges me forward and I stumble a bit before regaining my balance. The walker still hasn't noticed us. I walk towards the walker slowly, not wanting it to notice me and then come at me cause let's face it, I've been there once and it almost ended horrifically. When I reach the walker it finally notices me and looks up but it's too late. Ashley's knife is already lodged into it's eyeball.

"Nice." Ashley commends me with a head nod. "You sure that was your first time?" She questions me with a raised brow as I pull the knife out of the walkers eye.

"I'm positive." I say, making a disgusted face at the remnants of the walkers brain that remains on the knife. Ashley takes the knife from me and wipes it off on the walkers clothes.

"Then you're a natural." She says before walking off out of the room and down the hall to clear the next room. After we cleared all the rooms we gathered up as much stuff as we could and headed to the next house.

We continued scavenging for a few more hours before heading back to camp with all our scavenged goods.

–

"Wow, you guys really got a lot of stuff." Jo says and we dump the contents of our bags on the living room floor.

"The houses were really giving." Ashley says with a smile.

"We're not still seriously thinking about leaving in the morning are we?" Rick says coming down the stairs.

"Yeah, we are." Ashley says matter-of-factly. Rick rolls his eyes and scoffs as he walks over to examine the products of our scavenge.

"I'm taking these." He says, picking up a pack of smokes off the floor and pulling a lighter from his pocket.

"Rick you know you shouldn't." Santana shakes her head at her husband but he just waves her off and walks out the front door.

There's a zombie apocalypse going on outside and he wants to step out to smoke.

Wow.

Some people.

"Are you two coming with us tomorrow?" Tim asks Santana who shrugs. "It's important that we find out. And from you too, Owen." Tim turns to the guy from Ashley's group who voted against leaving yesterday. "We're gonna need this information tonight." Tim says just as a deep scream rings out from outside. We all get up and run to look outside.

"Rick...noooooo!" Santana yells as five walkers start to pile on him, falling over each other, all trying to get a taste.

"There's nothing you can do now." Jayden says, holding her back.

"Well I guess we got his answer about going to Atlanta." Aiden says nonchalantly with a shrug and I try to stifle a laugh. I look around and see everyone else doing the same.

"Young man..." My mother scolds Aiden.

"How dare you!" Santana shouts as she rips out of Jayden's arms and run out of the house. She tries to pull some walkers off Rick but to no avail. She gets over powered and now it's her screams we hear as the walkers devour her flesh. The walkers look up from the two bodies they're eating and start to walk towards the house. Carmen slams the door shut and her Aiden and Glen lean against it while other people push stuff against it.

"Crap. We need to leave now." Tim turns and says.

"It's just five of them, we can take them out." Ashley says grabbing her gun off her hip.

"Look." Tim says lifting the blinds on the far side of the house. A massive herd of walkers are headed right this way.

"We're not ready yet." My dad says.

"We're gonna have to be." Carmen shakes her head and shrugs.

"Everyone pack up!" Tim shouts. "Quickly." He adds.

"A herd that size will rip this house apart." I say moving next to Tim.

"I know, that's why we need to leave now!" Tim tells me sternly before going to help his wife pack up their things.

"Maybe this was the bad feeling I had." Ashley says, coming up beside me.

I shake my head as I stare out at the herd of walkers headed this way.

We never get a break.


	18. Saving Grace

I know it's been a while since I posted. I came down with the flu and then turkey day came so I had a lot of family in town. Hope this update is worth the wait. Be sure and tell me what you think.

* * *

"_Daaaad!" I shout as another walker approaches me. My dad turns from the walker he just stabbed in the head and hurries over to me, shooting the walker in the head in the process._

"_You okay?" He questions me and I know._

_"Arthur more are coming!" My mom shouts as she continues to shoot the approaching walkers._

"_Why are there so many coming?" Glen asks, shooting walkers too._

"_I don't know." My dad shakes his head. Every time they kill one five more appear from the woods. As we were exiting the house we were scavenging we got ambushed. Luckily we're always on guard and expected it. I'm not allowed to shoot guns yet so all I have is a pocket knife my dad gave to me before this all started. _

_I know right. We're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and I'm not allowed a gun._

_As my dad shoots another walker in the head I realize something. All the other walkers that were walking towards Glen changed direction and started after my dad. _

"_Glen, shoot your gun." I tell him and he gives me a puzzled look. "Just do it." I tell him. He shrugs and turns around shooting his gun in the air. "I meant shoot a walker but okay." I shake my head at him._

"_Well you didn't specify." He shrugs. _

"_They're attracted to the noise." I say as it dawns on me._

"_What?" My dad questions._

"_The gunshots. They're attracted to them." I clarify and my dad shoots a walker in the head and notices when all the rest that were headed towards my brother stray towards him._

"_You're right!" He half shouts. _

"_We need to get some quieter weapons." Glen says. _

"_Oh yeah, let me just check my stash." I joke._

"_There was a sheriffs station about two miles down the road. Maybe they'll have some silencers or something." Glen says._

"_Good idea son." My dad says. Hey! I was the one that noticed the attraction to sound. Glen smiles back at me and I roll my eyes and shake my head at him._

_Always wanting praise from dad._

–

"Everyone needs to keep up." Tim bellows out to the group as we run through the woods. We had to kill about twenty walkers so far and it doesn't seem like they're gonna let up. The huge mass that was headed towards us is still following us.

"We can't run all night. It's getting too dark." My dad points out and we know he's right. We've tried running through the woods at night before. It's not fun.

"I have a plan." Aiden says from somewhere behind me. Jessica and Francisco are being carried on Glen and Tim's back so they won't slow us down too much. My mom, dad and I are towards the front of the group while Aiden, Ashley and Kyla are in the back. Kyla is having a hard time keeping up with her hurt ankle.

"We're listening." Tim says when Aiden doesn't continue.

"Oh!" Aiden says and I shake my head. It really isn't all there for him. I inwardly chuckle at the thought of him and Glen together. How they're about as equally dumb.

"Aiden the plan." Ashley says and I can tell she's frustrated with him.

"How about I cut myself and run in a different direction most of them will follow me and you guys and take out the rest so we can all rest up a bit. You know I'm fast."

"No." Glen practically shouts. Aw. He's protecting his boo thang.

Hehe. I just said boo thang.

"That's so dumb." Ashley says.

"What why?" Aiden shrieks.

"Cause they're zombies not vampires you idiot." Ashley says and I don't have to look back to know the face she's giving him right now.

"Oh." Is all Aiden says.

"We're gonna just have to outrun them." Carmen says out of breath. I'm close to dying right now so I don't dare waste my air on talking.

"Mr. Carlin is right, we can't run all night though." Jayden says.

"We're gonna have to take out the walkers then." Tim says.

"There's too many." I say. See! Why'd I have to go and do that for. Now I'm tired as hell. "Shit." I mumble and then realize my parents are right next to me. My mother looks down and gives me a warning look before curling her lips up into a smile and shaking her head.

"Jayden, Leo and Jackie, take Jessica, Francisco and Kyla and head over to those shrubs up ahead. Everyone make sure your weapons are loaded and silencers on. We don't want to attract more walkers." Tim instructs us and Glen and Tim both sit the children they were carrying down as they run and hide in the shrubs ahead with the others. The walkers are about a hundred yards behind us so we have time to prepare. "Glen, Carmen, Arthur and Spencer take the left. I'll stay middle. Paula you and Aiden take the right. Ashley you-"

"I'll get high." Ashley says as she throws her bow over her shoulder and climbs the tree before Tim can even process her sentence.

"How in the-"

"I know right." I say, still in disbelief as everyone stares up at Ashley climbing the tree like she was raised by monkey's.

"Okay, Ashley has up high. Everyone ready?" Tim asks. We all nod as the herd moves toward us. We begin taking the out one by as the get closer to us. Not wanting to waste bullets. Even from the tree Ashley is still an impeccable shot with her bow and arrow. Hitting walkers in the head one after the other. I glance up at her and marvel in the way she holds her bow, so confident. I get distracted and don't even notice the walker that's right up on me. I had to stand in the front.

"Spencer!" My dad and Glen both yell but it's too late I'm on the ground with the walker on top of me.

Same shit different day.

"Fuck my life!" I mumble out and try to shoot the walker in the head but can't get my arm from underneath my body. My dad and Glen run towards me but Ashley has already saved the day. There was a arrow in the walkers head before they even got to me. My dad looks up at Ashley and gives her and appreciative smile, which she returns and then goes back to shooting the walkers, now with bullets.

"What have I told you about getting distracted." Glen says to me as he shoots a walker in the head. Impressively might I add.

"I know I know." I shake my head, scolding myself.

"Nice shot son." My dad says too Glen, who smiles proudly, before turning to me. "Spencer you can never lose focus." My dad tells me.

"Show off." I mouth to Glen who shrugs and smirks.

"Um guys, later?" Tim says and we all snap out of it and realize we've got zombies to kill.

I glance up at Ashley one more time, inwardly thanking her for saving my life, yet again.

"Spencer!" Glen says.

"Oops." I shrug and lift my weapon to take out more walkers.

–

"Awesome jobs guys." Tim commends everyone on their amazing shooting.

"Are we resting now?" Aiden questions. Obviously tired from the shooting fest we just had.

"We could." Tim nods. "Or we can walk on for a few more miles. Make up ground we just lost." Tim says looking around at the group. Everyone is tired. We ran for over two hours straight after leaving the house. We'd all just like to get some sleep right now.

"I think we should rest up for the morning." My dad says.

"Kyla has a severely sprained ankle which has only been more aggravated tonight. She should really rest it." My mother says as she and Carmen examine Kyla's ankle.

"I agree." Carmen nods.

"I'm fine to walk guys really." Kyla tries but no one is listening to her.

"Kyla hush up, the doctors know best." Ashley tells her sister.

"But really I can-"

"Okay." Tim nods. "We can rest up. I'll take first shift." He adds. Kyla shakes her head and smiles. I guess she's used to being treated like a child. Me, on the other hand, I do not want to go back to that.

"I'll help." My dad says, reloading his weapon. "We're gonna need to restock on these soon." MY dad says to no one in particular. "We're expending them faster than we can replenish." He adds.

"Here." Tim says tossing my dad a bag.

My dad opens the bag and his mouth drops open once he sees the contents.

"Quite a stash." He says to Tim.

"Had plenty of weapons and ammo lying around my house." Tim shrugs.

"Law enforcement?" My dad questions.

"Military police, yeah." Tim nods. I walk away from them as they continue their conversation and head over towards Ashley.

"Thanks." I say sitting down beside her as she takes her tent out to set it up.

"No problem." She says not looking at me.

"Spencer you coming to bed?" My mom calls to me as her and Glen set up a tent. I'm sure Glen is sleeping with Aiden though.

"In a minute." I tell her. She gives me a smile and goes back to what she was doing.

"Still." I say turning back to Ashley. "I think when someone saves your life...especially if they've done it more than once... you thank them." I tell her with a smile.

"Then you're welcome." She says turning to me and smiling back. "I have something for you." She adds as she reaches in her backpack.

"Skittles!" I half yell when she hands the bag to me. "How did you even get these?" I ask, immediately opening the bag and devouring some.

"Does that really matter?" She asks with a raised brow and I shake my head. "Didn't think so." She adds with a smirk.

"Thank you so much." I say after I swallow the delicious candy in my mouth and pull her into a hug. She's caught off guard I think because her breath hitches but she doesn't bring her arms up to hug me back. "Sorry." I say pulling back.

"No." She says shaking her head. "It's fine." She smiles and stands up. "Wanna help me with this?" She asks, pointing to her tent.

"Sure." I nod, putting some more skittles in my mouth. "Here eat this." I say and put a skittle in her mouth. She moans as she chews. "Delicious right?" I ask with an eye wiggle and smile.

"Did you just feed me?" She questions, quirking a brow.

"Um..." Yeah, that's all I got.

"Careful Spencer." She leans over and whispers in my ear. "I might take that as an invitation." She says in a low voice and I have no words right now. I swallow the candy that's in my mouth and wordlessly bend down and start unfolding her tent. I hear Ashley chuckle above me and then bend down to help with the tent.

I can't even begin to tell you the things this girl is doing to me.


	19. The Ties That Bind

I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

* * *

"_I've never really done this before." I say to the girl sitting across from me in the backseat of my dad's Toyota Camry._

"_Me neither." She smiles shyly and looks away briefly, a blush evident on her pale white face._

"_Lindsey it's okay." I tell her, turning her face back towards me._

"_I might be bad at this." She says._

"_Me too." I reply and we both giggle a bit. "Are you ready?" _

"_Mhm." She nods. Lindsey and I were about to share our first kiss. One of many that we'd share in the backseat of my dad's car. It wasn't the most romantic place but it was the only place we could have privacy. _

_Nosy parents and all._

_But I guess at fourteen I guess privacy is a luxury I'm not yet given. _

_Lindsey and I lean forward at the same time and the moment our lips touched I knew I loved her. I knew it and I wanted everyone else to know it. So I came out to my parent's that very night. And they were more understanding then I ever thought they would be. _

–

"Do you like my sister?" Kyla comes up next to me and asks.

"I-"

"Cause if you do, I'm gonna have to get to know you better." She says cutting me off. I give her a confused look and she just smiles. We're walking towards the highway now. We were up at the crack of dawn to head out. Ashley hasn't said a word to me all morning and now Kyla wants to play twenty-one questions.

"I don't think now is such a-"

"When do you suppose we have this conversation then?" She questions with a raised brow.

"Um... I don't know." I shrug.

"We're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, Spencer. There's never gonna be a right time to have this conversation." She says and looks back at her sister. "What are your intentions?" She questions.

"Huh?"

"With my sister? What do you want to happen with her?"

"Kyla I don't think this is-"

"Look." She says, cutting me off again. "Ashley's the only family I have left and even though this world is really crazy right now, I won't let some blonde beauty break her heart." She says pointedly and I turn and raise a brow at her.

"Blonde beauty?" I question with a smile.

"Logistics." She shrugs.

"What does that even-"

"Anyways..." She says, cutting me off once again. I can't complete one sentence with this girl. "You're sixteen right?" She asks.

"Yeah." I nod.

"Well Ashley's eighteen and she's had a lot of girlfriends and a lot of girls break her heart. I won't let you break it too." She says and walks back to her sister.

"What was that all about?" Glen asks, catching up to me.

"Apparently everyone thinks I'm in love with Ashley and Kyla just had a little chat with me to make sure I didn't break her sisters heart." I tell him.

He glances back at them, then turns back to me. "Oh. Well you do like her don't you? You can admit it to me Spence, I'm your brother." He leans closer to me and says.

"I still know hardly anything about her." I point out.

"So." He shrugs. "That doesn't change what you're feeling in here." He says pointing to my heart. "Or down-"

"Glen I swear to God if you point to my vagina..._ I will kill you_." I tell him through gritted teeth and he grins and pulls his hand back.

"Well hello there children." My dad says as he and my mom walk up beside us.

"Hey." Glen and I say in unison.

"Glen can I ask you something?" My mother says.

"Sure mom." Glen says and steals one of my skittles from my bag as I take them out of my pocket.

"Hey!" I shriek. He shrugs and turns to our mom.

"That Aiden fellow, you and him having relations?" She asks him and he almost chokes on the skittle he was eating.

"Wh...what?" He asks once he swallows properly.

Ha!

See what I did there?

"Are you and that strapping young man back there having relations?" She asks again and my dad looks like he's in pain at the thought.

"Mom!" Glen says embarrassed.

"No need to be embarrassed son, your mother and I are aware of your lifestyle. We've known for some time now." My dad says.

"How did you-"

"Well..." My mom starts, interrupting him. "...you've never once talked about a girlfriend and you had a poster of David Beckham and Ricky Martin on your wall son." My mother finishes and I stifle a laugh.

Honestly, how was I so oblivious to what was right in front of me?

"Why didn't you just tell us yourself?" My dad asks Glen.

"I think I'm to blame for that." I pipe up.

"Spence you don't have to-"

"Glen was gonna come out before me but I beat him to it and being the awesome big brother he is..." I pause and give my brother a smile. Cause let's face it... he is pretty awesome. "...he decided not to steal my shine." I finish and Glen pulls me into a one armed hug.

"Shine?" My mother asks with a smile.

"You know what I mean." I shake my head and say.

"Glen you still didn't answer my question." My mother turns back to Glen and says.

"Um...uh..." I don't know why I find this so hilarious right now.

"Yes. Him and Aiden are..." I stop when Glen gives me a look. Oops guess he didn't want our parents to know. "...you know what I'm gonna go over there." I tell my family, pointing in no particular direction.

"Thanks Spencer." Glen says sarcastically and shakes his head. As I'm walking away I hear my mother asking Glen about using protection and I cringe at the thought.

But sidenote: Really mom? You think Glen and Aiden just have a stash of condoms somewhere. This is an apocalypse for goodness sake.

"I'm sorry about Kyla." Ashley says coming up beside me.

"It's no biggie." I say and shrug.

"She has that protective little sister thing going on. There's no stopping her once she makes her mind up to do something." Ashley continues.

"Really, it's no problem." I say not turning to look at her.

"Okay." Ashley replies softly.

"I think we should break for lunch." Tim announces to the group. You see how even though my dad is at least ten years older than Tim everyone still respects him as the leader of this group? Tim just has that way about him.

"Good idea." My dad agrees.

"An hour break everyone. We still have a pretty long way til we make it to the highway. We wanna get there before night fall." Tim instructs us and everyone nods and mumbles their 'okays' as we settle down for lunch. Jayden, Jo and my mom decided to be the cooks for this afternoon while, Glen, Aiden, my dad and Tim went to look for firewood and to see if they could hunt some small animals to cook.

"Are you mad at me?" Ashley asks me as I stand guard a few feet away from camp. Owen and Jackie are standing guard behind me on the other side of camp while Carmen is standing guard to my right.

"You're supposed to be guarding camp." I tell her nonchalantly.

Honestly, I'm a bit bitter right now. She hasn't spoken to me all morning and now she wants to have a conversation when it's convenient for her.

I know...very teenagerish of me... so what?

"Spencer, tell me what's wrong with you" She steps in front of me and says.

"Nothing." I shake my head and avoid her eyes at all cost.

"You're lying." She says simply.

"And how would you know?" I question with a raised brow.

"Your forehead gets this little line right here." She says and brushes a thumb over the spot she was referring to.

Okay no fair!

She's using unfair tactics right now.

"Um..." I mumble.

"Are you gonna tell me what's wrong?" She leans forward and whispers in my ear.

I regain my composure and clear my throat. "You should really get back on your post. We could get overrun with zombies with you standing over here." I tell her.

She studies my face for a moment. I'm still doing my best to look everywhere but at her.

"Are you angry about earlier?" She questions.

"No." I shake my head.

"You're lying." Is her reply as she smirks.

"You don't know anything."

"Right." She smiles.

–

_Earlier that day..._

"_We should head out. We've got a long morning ahead of us." Tim tells everyone as we pack up._

"_Hey." I walk up to Ashley and say as the group starts to walk. She turns and looks at me before mumbling a hey._

_Okaaaay?_

_I don't know what that's about._

"So...d_id you sleep good last night? Me personally, I got some really good sleep. I mean sleeping in a tent with my mom and dad wasn't ideal, I much rather would have slept in a tent with-"_

"_I should probably catch up to Kyla." She says cutting me off, without so much as a second glance and walks off._

"_Ashley." I call after her, but she keeps walking._

_Did I do something wrong?_

–

"Why would I be upset about that? I don't care Ashley. You're your own person and you can do wha-" Yeah I'm not talking anymore... for two reasons...everything I was just thinking is completely gone from my brain and two, well... you probably guessed or maybe you didn't I don't know what you're thinking but clearly Ashley's lips are on mine.

I'm honestly not sure whether to push her away or kiss her back. For one I don't really know this girl and I don't even know if I like her yet. I mean, yeah she's extremely sexy but I've ever only looked at one girl that way so there's not really much to compare with.

I can just _feel_ my mother's eyes on us right now.

But Ashley isn't letting up. I'm guessing she's gonna kiss me until I kiss back so... I give in and kiss her back.

"I'm sorry." She says once she pulls back. "I'm sorry for blowing you off this morning but more than that I'm sorry if I led you to believe that I don't have feelings for you because I do." She takes her bottom lip between her teeth and smiles. It takes everything in me not to moan right now. I stare at her lips, wanting them on mine again, but I don't say a word. "You're something else Spencer Carlin." She says before walking away back to her post.

Yeah... I'm done talking...


	20. No Turning Back

One of my favorite chapters. Hope yo enjoy. :)

* * *

"Finally!" Aiden groans as we reach the highway. You know, for him to be so fit, he sure is lazy as hell.

"We need to move quickly, we don't know what the walker situation is here." Ashley says.

"The city was overrun the last time Spencer and I were here." Glen says looking around at the group.

"Let's move it then. Find two or three suitable SUV's preferably already with a least a half a tank of gas. We don't have time to siphon gas here." Tim instructs the group and we all do as we're told. "Search for any other supplies we may need as well." He adds. Everyone moves quickly, looking in cars supplies as well as vehicles for us to travel in.

"You think mom and dad will let me ride in the car with Aiden?" Glen questions as we pull some medical supplies from a car and put them in our bags.

"What?" I ask confused.

"To Atlanta." He clarifies. "The seating arrangements have pretty much already been picked out." He adds.

"Glen, what are you talking about?" I ask as we move on to the next car.

"Tim and his family are gonna ride with Carmen family. Me, you, mom, dad and that Jackie lady. And Ashley and the rest of her group." He says.

Oh... I never even thought of that.

"Oh." Is all I say to my brother, thinking about the idea of not seeing Ashley for hours at a time while we travel across the country.

"You didn't think about it, did you?" Glen asks reading my face.

"No." I shake my head.

"Maybe we could ask to switch with Owen and Leo." Glen suggests. It seems kind of selfish that we just got mom and dad back but all Glen and I want to do is spend all our time with Ashley and Aiden. "You gonna ask?" He turns to me with a worried look.

Glen can be so scary.

"Fine." I say and roll my eyes at him. He smiles and goes back to scavenging.

–

"You know how to hot wire a car?" I ask Ashley as she plays with some wires under the steering wheel console.

"Since I was twelve." She says and smiles.

"Is there anything you can't do?" I ask hoping into the passenger seat. Everyone is packing the scavenged goods into the three cars we've chosen. The keys were in the other two. Who takes the keys when they're running from zombies? Who thinks 'yeah, there's zombies chasing me but I want to make sure my car doesn't get stolen so let me take my car keys with me?'

"I _can't_ stop thinking about your lips." She says, looking straight in my eyes as the engine roars to life. I clear my throat before speaking.

"I should..." I trail off and point behind us. Yeah, she has that effect on me. I jump out of the van and walk back to the jeep my parent's were loading.

"Ready?" My dad asks with a smile. Glen comes up behind my parents would a look of worry on his face. I shake my head and turn back to my father.

"Dad, Glen and I were wondering if we could ride with Ashley and Aiden." I say without hesitation and Glen cringes and awaits his answer.

"Sure." My dad says and both Glen and I share a look.

"Really?" I question. I actually wasn't expecting a yes.

"Mhm." My dad nods as he loads the last bag into the trunk of the jeep.

"Thanks dad." I say and hug him.

"He's different." Glen says as he catches up to me, walking towards the van we'd be riding in.

"I know." I agree.

"Riding with us?" Ashley questions.

"Yeah." I smile.

"I'll drive first." Aiden says cheerfully, hoping into the front seat.

"Kyla come on." Ashley calls to her sister who was sitting on a car nearby.

"Ashley!" I half shout when Kyla stands up. There are a herd of walkers coming from the woods.

"We need to go now!" Ashley screams to the rest of the group who turn and see the walkers coming towards us. "Get in, Spence." Ashley says, practically tossing me into the van. I was too busy staring at all the walkers. "Ky hurry!" She says to her sister who is running now to reach us. I look at the back window and see everyone scrambling to get everyone in the car and get the cars started. Once Kyla was in the car Ashley hoped in and slid the door shut. "Go!" She yelled to Aiden who wasted no time pressing the gas and speeding off. Hitting a couple walkers in the process.

The umph of them hitting the car fender was not a pretty sound.

"Is everyone behind us?" Aiden asks. I look out the window to make sure everyone got away okay.

"They're right behind you." I tell Aiden who let's out a sigh of relief.

"Where did those things even come from?" Kyla asks, rubbing her ankle.

"The woods." Ashley says and laughs at her sisters dumb question.

"You know what I mean." Kyla says and slaps her sister on the arm.

"Ow." Ashley says rubbing her arm. She turns and smiles at me before getting up and joining me on the back seat. "Hey." She says sitting down.

"Hi." I smile back.

"Long trip ahead of us." She says unnecessarily.

"Yeah." I nod.

"I can read your life line." She says grabbing my hand in hers.

"What?" I ask quirking a brow at her cause how random was that?

"Shh." She says and studies my hand intently.

"Ashley you're-"

"Shh!" She says again, not taking her eyes off my hand. "You're gonna live 'til you're old and gray." She starts, rubbing a finger over the line in the middle of my palm. "You're gonna have three children, two boys and a girl, of course."

"Ash-"

"Shh Spencer, you'll break my concentration." She says trying to be serious but I can see a smile playing at the corner of her lips.

"Okay." I whisper. She glances at me and smiles before turning her attention back to my hand.

"You're gonna get married when you're twenty-one." She says and I can see her trying to hold back a smile. "To a girl of course." She adds. "Oh!" She says suddenly, tracing the line closest to my thumb.

"What?" I ask, like she's really telling me my future right now.

"She's brunette." She says and smiles. "With brown eyes." She adds and gives me back my hand.

"I bet." I tease with a smile.

"I'm never wrong." She says and shakes her head. "One hundred percent guaranteed." She adds.

"Mhm." I nod and narrow my eyes at her.

"What?" She questions.

"Nothing." I say shaking my head and turning away from her.

"It's something, Spencer." She says scooting closer to me, turning my face back to her.

"No, it's just that..." I trail off as I catch her staring at my lips.

"What?" She asks again, lifting her eyes back up to meet mine.

"I wanna...I just... I..."

"Will you just freaking kiss her already!" I hear Glen say from the front seat.

"Yeah." Aiden and Kyla both say at the same time.

"I like where your brother's head is at." Ashley says with a smile.

"You would." We hear Kyla mumble in front of us before she sighs and shakes her head then lays down on the seat. Covering her face with her arm.

"I'm gonna..." I trail off as she moves towards me. Our faces mere inches a part. Just as our lips were about to touch we hear a horn blow. It seriously scared the shit out of me. I jumped up in my seat and hit my head on the ceiling. And Ashley is laughing at me! Laughing!

"It's not funny." I say in a pout as I look back to the car behind us and see my mom and dad waving.

You have got to be kidding me. I shake my head at them as Ashley moves my hand and rubs the spot I was just rubbing.

"Are you okay?" She questions with a smile.

"No." I say and pout some more.

"You're being a baby, Spencer." She says lifting up and kissing the spot she was rubbing. "All better."

"Un huh." I nod.

"Maybe we should try to get some sleep." She suggests.

"I could be concussed!" I almost shout which causes Kyla to sit up and literally give me the stare of death. "I mean, I could be concussed." I whisper this time as Kyla lays back down.

Ashley giggles at us and says, "You didn't hit your head hard enough to be concussed, Spencer."

"How do you know?" I question, pulling my hand down off my head and checking for blood.

Ashley giggles at me again before responding, "I just know." She says.

"Fine." I nod and slouch down in the seat.

"Here, lay like this." Ashley says laying her back against the window and pulling me down on top of her–my back to her front. "Better?" She whispers in my ear.

"Much." I say and nod.

"Goodnight, Spencer." She says softly and kisses my hair.

"Goodnight." I reply just as softly...


	21. A Skittles Detour

Another update because I love you guys! :) Tell me what you think of this chapter.

* * *

"Where are we?" I ask, opening one eye and looking up at Ashley. I realize we're no longer moving.

"I'm not sure." She says before she yawns and stretches.

"Did you sleep at all?" I ask and smile at how cute she is right now.

"Best sleep I've gotten in almost a year." She replies with a nose crinkling smile.

"Wish I could say the same." I say grabbing my neck and rubbing it. Ugh! I must have slept wrong.

"Crook?" She questions.

"Think so." I nod and immediately regret it. Anyone who's ever had a crook in their neck knows what I'm talking about.

"Here lemmy see." She says holding out her hands. I turn my back to her and she begins rubbing my neck.

"Oh wow." I practically moan out as she rubs the knot out my neck. "You're reaaaaaaaally good at this." I say, closing my eyes at the contact. "Mmm." Involuntarily comes out my mouth.

"Would you two stop making babies back there and help us." Glen says peeking his head in the front window. Ashley and I both clear our throats and shyly look away from each other before getting out the van.

"Where are we?" I ask my stupid brother who seems to have a knack for interrupting us.

"Grand Junction." Glen says.

"Where the fuck is that?" I question. I mean give me a break. I only finished the ninth grade.

"Colorado." Ashley leans over and whispers in my ear.

"Ahh!" I jump. Ashley just giggles at me. I clear my throat and say, "I mean...we're all the way in Colorado?" I question with wide eyes.

"You two were asleep for a pretty long time." Aiden says with a creepy smile.

"Why is he smiling at me like that?" I turn to Ashley and ask.

"I told you." She looks at me and smiles. "You tend to talk in your sleep a lot." Ashley adds and I know my cheeks are red from the way they're burning right now.

"How long is a long time?" I question...anyone really...anything to not talk about the things I may have said in my sleep.

"Oh, only about eight and a half hours." Kyla says non-nonchalantly.

"Eight and a half hours!" Ashley and I say at the same time.

"Oh my God, are you two trying to attract every walker in Colorado?" Glen turns and asks.

"Sorry." We mumble in unison.

"Creepy." Kyla turns to us and says.

"Why have we stopped? Where's everyone else?" I ask, turning and realizing the other vehicles aren't around.

"They went for gas. We're out, they're not." Aiden shrugs.

"They left us here?" Ashley questions.

"No big deal." Glen says stretching.

"What if a big group of walkers come?" I say looking around us. We seem to be in a pretty populated area. Lots of buildings. Walkers could be anywhere.

"Calm down. We're keeping watch." Glen tells me.

"Glen I'm two seconds away from-"

"Take a walk with me, Spence." Ashley says pulling my arm away from the group.

"What'd I do?" I ask once she lets me go. She takes her bow off her back and readies it with an arrow, just in case.

"Nothing." She shakes her head and smiles. "I just wanted to take a walk, that's all." She adds and shrugs.

"We shouldn't separate." I turn and look back at the group. We all know what happens when we separate. Been there done that.

"We're just going over there Spencer." She says pointing to a store...a candy store!

"Oh my God, they could have skittles!" I say jumping up and down.

"Yeah, they could." She smiles and wiggles her eye brows. "Stand right here." She says opening the door to the candy shop. She aims her bow inside the dark building and looks around.

"Is it clear?" I question. I know she couldn't have possibly cleared it that quickly but I'm so excited about the prospect of getting these skittles right now that I don't care.

"Spencer shhh!" Ashley scolds me from inside the building somewhere. I can't see her now.

"Sorry." I whisper. I'm sure she's laughing at me right now, sensing my eagerness.

"You know, you really ought to learn when to be quiet. You're gonna get yourself killed." She says as she comes out the building a few moments later. "Or worse...me." She adds with a smirk.

"Is it clear?" I ask again, shaking my head and smiling at her.

"All clear." She says looking my dead in my eyes. I can't move though. The look she's giving me is everything. Like she wants me and needs me all at the same time. "Aren't you gonna..." She trails off and nods in the direction of the store.

"Yeah, I should..." I trail off as I stare at her lips.

"You should." She nods as she takes her bottom lip between her teeth.

"You do that a lot." I point out.

"Nervous habit." She lets out a contrived laugh.

"I make you nervous?" I question, raising a brow.

"A bit." She swallows and shifts her weight to her right side.

"Must be a first." I lean in and whisper in her ear. "My how the tables have turned." I add before walking into the store. I let a smile play at my lips as I turn and see her still rooted in the same spot.

Ohhhhh skittles! I run over to the counter and pack every single bag of skittles that will fit, into my back pack.

"Think you got enough?" She questions, coming up next to me.

"You can never have enough skittles." Is my reply.

"Wait do those expire?" She asks, pointing to my bag.

"I don't know." I say grabbing a bag of skittles out of my back pack. "You know what, to be on the safe side... I'm not even gonna look." I say and toss the bag of skittles back into my backpack.

"Wait, not checking is being on the safe side?" She asks with a chuckle.

"Yeah, cause what if they're bad?" I ask seriously.

"You're crazy, you know that right?" She asks as we turn to leave the store.

"Meh, debatable." I say with a shrug.

"Where'd they go?" Ashley asks as we look over to the van from the candy store doorway.

"I don't know." I say looking around.

"Of course you don't know, Spencer. You were in here with me." Ashley giggles.

"Oh look there's Glen. He's waving at us...why is he waving at us?" I turn and ask her. And like the idiot I am...I start waving back. He shakes his head at me and points toward some buildings I can't see. "Why is he on the ground?" I ask and before I can completely get my sentence out Ashley and I are on the floor of the candy shop against the front wall, under the window. "What the-" Ashley clamps her hand over my mouth.

"Shh." She says putting a finger up to her lips. I'm so confused right now. "Look." She whispers and we both sit up on our knees to peek out the window.

"Oh my God!" I breathe out and duck back under the windowsill when I see the massive herd of walkers headed right this way. "We're gonna die, we're gonna die, we're gonna die..." I start chanting over and over as I hear them shuffling this way.

"No we're not Spencer just be quiet." Ashley tells me but I'm too hysterical right now to listen. I have never seen a herd that big before. There has to be at least a hundred walkers.

"There's so many." I say closing my eyes really tight. Maybe this is all a dream. None of this is actually happening right now.

"Spencer open your eyes. Spencer look at me!" Ashley says jerking me around to face her.

"We're gonna die, I'm too young to die Ashley. I don't wanna-" Yep...it happened again. She's kissing me. And this isn't like first time either. For starters my mom isn't watching us...and this time, I'm kissing back. The moment her lips touched mine it's like my entire brain went blank.

Walkers?

What walkers?

"See, totally okay." She says pulling back. I sit up and look outside to see the herd has passed.

"Oh." I breathe out and sit back down on the floor.

"Just you know...come out when you're ready." Ashley says getting up with a smile.

"Yeah...yeah okay...yeah." I nod as she leaves the store. I place a finger up to my lips, still feeling the electric shock from her touch. After I pull myself together I join everyone else by the car.

"Why in the hell would you think I was waving at you?" Glen asks me once I reach them.

"Mhm." I nod but don't acknowledge him more than that. I slide open the door to the van and get in.

"Ashley you broke my sister." I hear Glen say followed by Ashley chuckling.

"We're back!" Tim's voice startles me from my thoughts of Ashley.

"You missed it guys! A massive herd came through." Glen says in an excited tone. Leave it to Glen to be excited about us almost becoming an evening snack.

"I'm glad everyone is okay." Tim and my father say in unison.

"We're good." Aiden says for no reason. Clearly they can see we're good. They put the gas in the car and everyone piles back in, this time Glen behind the wheel.

"You okay?" Ashley asks as she scoots in next to me.

"Perfectly fine." I nod but don't turn to face her.

"I can see that." She says and chuckles before leaning over and kissing my cheek. "Eat some skittles they'll make you feel better." She says opening my backpack and grabbing a pack of skittles out, opening them for me as well. "Here." She says and puts the skittle in my mouth. "Better?" She questions.

"Much." I smile and lay my head on her lap.

I think I'm in trouble... I seem to be really falling for a girl I know hardly anything about.

And we're kinda in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Just great...


	22. Stupid Cupid

Hope you enjoy! :)

* * *

"_So you told your parent's about us?" Lindsey asks with a smile._

"_I did." I nod._

"_So we don't have to hide anymore? We can hang out at your house now?" She asks and I can see the gleam in her eyes. She's as happy as I am that my parent's accepted me after I told them I was gay. _

"_We don't have to hide anymore." I shake my head. We're sitting at the park watching the ducks swim by in the pond like we did every Sunday after church. She grabs my hand and takes it in hers. _

_I've never felt like this with anyone. _

_Wanting to be with them forever._

_Lindsey and I could sit right here on this park bench forever and I'd be content._

_Nothing else matters when I'm with her._

_I know you're thinking I'm only fourteen and this can't be real love._

_Well you're not feeling what I'm feeling._

_Lindsey is my soul mate and there will never be another girl to replace her._

–

"You know what I realized?" Ashley leans over and whispers in my ear.

"What?" I whisper back. Both Aiden and Kyla are asleep so we're trying not to be rude and wake them.

"I don't know anything important about you." She says with a smile.

"Like?" I question with a raised brow.

"Your favorite food, TV show, movie?" She shrugs and sits back closer to the window like she's waiting for me to answer.

"Does any of that really matter now?" I ask with a smile. I'll never watch any of those shows again, hell they're all probably dead now.

"To me it does." She nods with conviction.

"Okay." I smile and put my back against the opposite window, facing her. "Waffles, Friends, and the Goonies." I fire off each answer quickly.

"Me too, I love that show and Oh my God that's my favorite too!" She replies and we both giggle.

"Ashley." I say after we both stop giggling.

"Yeah?" She questions.

"This is dangerous." I tell her and swallow hard.

"What?" She asks moving closer to me.

"This." I point between us, letting my finger linger on her shirt.

"What exactly is this?" She asks, barely audible as she moves even closer to me.

"I don't know." I breathe in her scent. She smells so good. She always smells good. We're in the middle of a freaking zombie apocalypse and she always manages to smell like flowers. I, on the other hand smell like forest and earth. Gross.

"Neither do I." She replies just as softly.

"Well I wish you two would figure it out because I'm tired of listening to you yap about it." Kyla says from the seat in front of us and I hear Glen trying to hold back laughter. I on the other hand don't hold mine in.

Kyla is something else isn't she?

"Why don't you turn around and go back to sleep." Ashley playfully snaps at her sister who rolls her eyes and lays back down on the seat.

"She can be-"

"Annoying." Ashley finishes my sentence for me.

"I was gonna go with something less hurtful." I say with a smile.

"She'll be okay." Ashley waves me off. "Why is this dangerous?" She asks leaning close to me again. I'm finding it a tad hard to breathe at the moment so give me a second please. "Spencer?" She questions, leaning back with a raised brow.

"I'm falling for you." I tell her truthfully.

"And that's a problem because?" She asks with her brow still raised.

"You could die." I'm barely able to get out. I haven't known her that long but I feel like I've known her forever. And the thought of losing her pains me.

"I'm not gonna die." She shakes her head and smiles at me.

"But you could." I say.

"No, _you_ could." She counters.

"I-"

"But I wouldn't let that happen." She replies quickly with a smile before leaning completely in and kissing me. I can never fully understand how every single time she kisses me she takes my breath away. When she pulls back she smiles brightly at me.

"What?" I question as my eyes slowly open. I can still feel her lips lingering on mine. I fight the urge to touch them.

"I want to know about the girl you loved." She says gauges me for a reaction.

"I don't like to-"

"I know." She cuts me off and nods. "And I get it. But I'd like to know about her..." She says moving impossibly closer to me. "When you're ready of course." She adds and lets a small smile escape her lips.

I sigh and nod. "Okay." I lay my head down on her shoulder and close my eyes.

"Look at all those zombies." Ashley whispers above me. I turn my head and look out the window to my right. A bunch of zombies are walking in a field across the highway.

"Can you imagine. All those people probably had families and people that loved them." I breathe out then realize how tense Ashley body gets.  
Shit!

I forgot she lost her parents.

"I'm sor-"

"It's fine." She says and smiles down at me. "I know what you meant." She adds after a moment. I lay my head back down on her shoulder.

I'm sure neither one of us are tired but just being around her is so comforting that we both fall asleep anyway.

–

"Wake up love birds." I open my eyes to see Glen leaning over the seat smiling at me and Ashley.

"Glen what the hell?" I question him.

"Watch your mouth Spencer." My dad says from somewhere outside the van. We must have stopped.

"Sorry." I yell out. "Why are we stopped?" I question as Ashley stirs awake.

"Good morning." Glen says to her and smiles a creepy smile. She elects to wave at him and then crawls out of the van. "Why no good morning for her lover Spencer." Glen says in a singsong voice and I slap his arm. "Ouch!" He shrieks. I roll my eyes at him and ask again.

"Why have we stopped?"

"Refuel." Is all he says before climbing out the van too. I shake my head at my crazy brother and climb out the van as well. Everyone is stretching and freshening up in a creek just down a hill off the road we're on.

"Where are we?" I ask my dad who comes up beside me and kisses the top of my head.

"Colorado Springs." He answers.

"We're moving pretty fast." I say.

He chuckles and says, "It's pretty easy to travel when there's no traffic. How are you and Ashley moving along?" He asks me after a moment and I just look up at him.

Seriously dad?

We're going there?

"I'm gonna go freshen up." I tell him, turning back into the van to grab my bag.

"Your mother and I are in the car behind you...don't forget that." My dad says and I start to walk down the hill. I look up at him and see he's smiling but still...what the heck does that even mean?

"Okay dad." I throw over my shoulder. "Dad's being creepy." I tell my mom who is washing her hair in the creek.

"Isn't he always honey?" She asks looking up at me. I purse my lips and shrug. I guess so. I walk over to where Ashley is, she stands up from the water and is now walking right towards me.

"Ashley why'd you run out of the van before saying-" Okay! She cuts me off with her lips. Tasting of mint and rainbows...

What do rainbows taste like exactly?

I don't know but I'm sure that's what Ashley is giving me right now.

Rainbow flavor.

Oooooh she must've had a skittle.

Mmm skittles.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to freshen up first." She pulls back and says with a smile.

"Okay." I nod, barely able to hold myself together.

"Do your thing." She says nodding to the water before sauntering off. I look up and down the creek I see Glen and Aiden cheesing at me.

Boys can be so stupid.

"Spencer hurry we're gonna head out soon." My mom says behind me and I can hear the smile in her voice.

"Okay." I croak out before walking towards the creek to freshen up.

–

"What are we thinking? Another full day of driving?" Tim asks the group. We're all back on the road now trying to discuss our plans for the day.

"The children are hungry and becoming restless." Jayden says.

"We could probably make it to Garden City in half the time and set up camp somewhere there." Owen says.

"We need to think about what's best for the children here." Jo pipes up. "The small snacks we're giving them on the road isn't enough. They need a meal. Some sustenance."

"Jo's right." My mom agrees. "We all need something to eat if we're to keep our strength for this long journey ahead." She adds.

"What are we proposing?" Tim asks as Ashley scoots closer to me and entwines her hand in mine. My heart flutters.

"I don't care where we go as long as I get to spend time with you." She leans over and whispers in my ear. I turn at look at her and she just smiles.

"Okay then. We'll set up camp here tonight get some food in our system. Ashley, think you can fish the creek?" Tim asks Ashley who mumbles a yeah then turns her attention back to me. I can feel people's eyes on us. "Okay then, we'll camp here tonight and get back on the road tomorrow. We're looking at about a full days ride to Atlanta from here. If we stop a couple times and siphon as much gas as we can we shouldn't need to stop much more than that. We can scavenge in Garden city tomorrow and restock our supplies." Tim says and everyone in the group agrees.

"I think camp should be up on that hill somewhere. We can have people stationed there, there and there." Carmen says pointing to three different locations away from where she suggested camp should be.

"Sounds good." Tim nods. "Aiden and Glen could you go and gather up some firewood, Arthur and Carmen with me on look out, Ashley and Spencer gonna try and catch us some dinner and everyone else can set up camp." Tim hands out everyone's assignments and we all get to it.

"I think everyone is on to us." Ashley says to me as we walk towards the creek.

"I think you're right." I say and nod in my moms direction. She's smiling at us along with Jo, Jackie and Jayden. "Ashley." I ask stopping her from walking further.

"What's wrong?" She questions, worried by my sudden actions.

"What am I?" I ask.

"A girl." She replies with a smile. I shake my head. "You are a girl right?" She asks with wide eyes and a smile.

"Of course I'm a girl." I say and slap her on the arm softly.  
"Then what are you asking me, Spencer?" She asks, suddenly serious again.

"I want to know what..." I trail off and swallow the lemon in my throat. I don't know why it's so hard for me to get this out.

"Ask me the question, Spencer." Ashley says pulling my face back up to look in my eyes. "What do you want to know?" She asks and I let my eyes flutter shut before replying.

"Am I your girlfriend?" I keep my eyes shut, waiting for her to reply. I know it's kind of childish of me to want to put a label on what's going on with Ashley and myself, but I need to know.

Something in me just...has to know.

I wait and wait and wait but she doesn't say anything. I open my eyes and she's smiling.

"I have some girls lined up, but if you don't mind waiting a few more...ow!" She shrieks when I hit her on the arm. This time it wasn't a love tap. "Sorry, sorry." She says rubbing her arm and poking her lips out at me. "Of course you're my girlfriend." She says and kisses my cheek.

"Next time I'll aim a little higher." I tell her playfully before turning on my heels and walking closer to the creek.

"Not my money maker!" She yells out as she catches up to me.


	23. My Hero

For those of you asking, this story has a few more chapters left. More than five but less than ten lol. I don't wanna give away the exact number. But it is coming to an end soon. No worries though, I promise to answer all the questions you've had throughout the story about Ashley at some point.

* * *

"_Should I tell them?" I ask Glen as we stare at my parent's in the kitchen dancing around and stealing kisses as they prepare dinner._

"_Yeah." Glen nods._

"_But what if they cut me off or worse! What if they say I can't ever hang out with Lindsey again?" I question my brother, becoming hysterical._

_He chuckles before saying, "Impossible. You're too cute." He pinches my cheeks and smiles._

"_Stop it." I slap his hand away and stand up from the kneeling position we were in._

_Yes! We were peeking around the wall to spy on my parents in the kitchen. _

_Sue us._

"_Just do it Spence." Glen says standing up beside me. "I promise you they'll understand. You're they're daughter. You're amazing and the fact that you like girls doesn't change that." He says and smiles._

"_You know sometimes you're really amazing, Glen." I tell him and he nods._

"_I know." _

"_Annnnd now you're not." I add and punch him in the arm._

"_You ready?" He questions._

"_As I'll ever be." I nod and we both make our way into the kitchen. "Mom, dad." I say once I reach them._

"_Yes sweetie?" My dad turns around and asks. _

"_I have something that I need to tell you both." I say and swallow thickly. I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my life. _

"_What is it honey?" My mom asks, dropping the stirring spoon that was in her hand in the pot of beef stew. I guess she could sense the seriousness of my tone._

"_Spencer tell them." Glen whispers in my ear. Oh, I must have spaced out._

"_Um...well...I..." I trail off and look up at Glen. He gives me a reassuring smile and for some reason all my worries and fears disappear. "I'm gay." I breathe out quickly and then look at my parents to gauge their reaction. My mom smiles and my dad just kind of stares at me blankly. "Are you guys gonna say something?" I ask after a moment._

"_Thank you for finally feeling comfortable enough to come and talk to us about this." My dad says, his lips curling up into a smile. _

"_Wait, you knew?" I question them._

"_No." My mom shakes her head._

"_Not for sure anyway." My dad adds._

"_Why didn't you come to me and say something?" I ask in disbelief. They knew this entire time and neither of the thought it would be nice if they came and told me they knew._

"_We didn't know for sure sweetie." My dad says._

"_And we didn't want to rush you." Mom adds._

"_Well I feel stupid." I sigh out and sit down on a bar stool. Glen chuckles before leaving the kitchen. All that freaking out over nothing. _

"_You shouldn't feel stupid, Spencer. We're glad that you've finally come to us and shared this with us." My dad says walking over to me and taking a seat in the bar stool next to me. _

"_I'm sorry I didn't before, I was scared." I admit._

"_Scared of what?" My mom asks._

"_That you two would hate me and wouldn't want me as your daughter anymore." I admit truthfully and they both show a brief moment of hurt before speaking._

"_We will always love you Spencer. Gay or straight. You're our daughter and we will always accept you." my mom tells me and I can't help but smile._

"_Never feel like you have to hide yourself from us Spencer. We will always support you." My dad adds as I pull them both into a tight hug._

–

"I wanna do it Ashley, stop trying to take it from me." I tell her pushing her hand away from the make-shift rod we're using to fish.

"But you're doing it all wrong!" She whines. "Here, lemmy show you how to cast your line again." She tries to grab the rod from me again but I push her away.

"Stooooop." I whine out.

"Spencer stop being a baby and let me show you." She is now on top of me while I try to hold the rod as far out of her reach as possible. I'm a good two inches taller than her so it's not so difficult.

"Catching dinner or..." We look and see my mom smiling down at us. Ashley hurries and scoots off of me while I straighten out my clothes and sit up.

"She was trying to show me how to cast a proper line." I tell my mother trying to hold back a smile.

"I'm sure." My mother nods and smiles then sits down next to me. "Ashley do you mind if I have a moment alone with Spencer?" She asks Ashley who nods and takes the rod out of my hand with a smile and walks further down the creek to fish.

"What's up, mom?" I ask, turning my attention back to my mother.

"Nothing." She shakes her head and smiles.

"Then why'd you want Ashley to leave?" I ask, thumbing in Ashley's direction.

"Because I just wanted a moment alone with my daughter." She smiles and leans over to kiss my forehead.

"Mom." I pull back and look at her. I know when something is up and right now something is definitely up. "Did dad send you over here to spy on me?" I question with a raised brow.

"No." She shakes her head and chuckles.

"Then what is it?"

"You and Ashley seem to be getting pretty close." She smiles and looks down the creek at Ashley.

"Mom, I don't want to-"

"I didn't come here to bust your chops about her, Spencer. That's your father's job remember." She adds and smiles.

"Then-"

"I wanted to tell you something that happened a couple months ago. How your father and I met Ashley and her group."

"You don't have to-"

"I do." She nods and smiles.

"Okay." I nod and sit back.

–

_Paula's POV_

"_We've searched this area at least a hundred times Arthur, the children are gone!" I half shout to my husband who refuses to believe that our children would just leave when we instructed them to stay._

"_They're here Paula, I can feel it." He tells me as we continue to search the woods._

"_Arthur..." I try again, but he's always been a stubborn man._

"_No!" He shouts, stopping and turning to face me. "We are gonna keep looking for them and that's final." He tells me and I know better than to try and challenge him once he's set his mind to something. _

"_Okay." I nod and pat on his shoulder. "We'll keep looking, but right now we need to find somewhere to camp for the night. There are way to many walkers roaming these woods at night."_

"_Okay." He nods in agreement. We walked another hour until we reached a small town with a couple of small houses in it. "Here is good for the night." He says as we walk towards a house._

"_Arthur!" I shout when I turn to my left and see a herd of about fifty walkers headed towards us._

"_Come on!" He shouts, pulling me towards the house. "I can't break this down!" He says as he continues to try to kick the door down. _

"_Arthur." I say as the herd gets closer. If he can't get this door open I know that we're done. There are way too many for us to fight on our own._

"_I can't get it open Paula, I'm sorry." He says with sadness in his voice. We don't have time to try to make a run for another house. The herd is entirely to close now. This is it...the end. I only hope the children made it out of that cabin alive and are somewhere surviving and fighting to live._

"_I love you." I turn to my husband and tell him. I have loved this man for twenty-one years._

"_Not nearly as much as I love you." He leans over and kisses me on my lips as we wait to be taken my herd of hungry walkers. We both close our eyes and wait for this inevitable moment. _

_A moment that never comes._

"_Come with me now!" A voice rings out from somewhere beside us. We open our eyes and see a girl that looks no older than sixteen or seventeen taking out the walkers in the front of the herd. "Please, you have to come now!" She says when neither of us move. Arthur and I finally snap out of it and pull out our weapons and start shooting as we follow the girl. "This way." She says, running behind the houses and into the woods. We run for at least twenty minutes before she cuts out of the woods and we're in another small town, but this one has way more house than the one we'd just left. "In here." She says opening the door to what looks to be the biggest house on the street. "Are you both okay?" She asks once she slides a barricade in front of the door._

"_We're fine." Arthur nods._

"_Why were you just standing there? Why weren't you trying to fight back?" She asks._

"_There were too many." I say._

"_There are never too many." She says with a smile, checking the clip in her gun before putting the gun back on the holster. _

"_Are you alone?" I ask her. _

"_No." She shakes her head. "My groups upstairs." She adds after a moment. _

"_We're looking for our two children. Are there any children in your group?" Arthur speaks up._

"_Just my sister and friend Aiden. No one else." She shakes her head._

"_Oh." Arthur and I say in unison. _

"_I'm sure they're out there. We'll help you guys look if you want." The young woman says and I can't help but smile._

"_Thank you." _

"_I'm Arthur Carlin and this is my wife Paula." Arthur says extending out his hand._

"_I'm Ashley." The young woman beams a smile at us._

–

"Why didn't you tell me how you met my parents?" I ask Ashley once I reach her.

"I don't know." She shrugs.

"You didn't think it was important to tell me that you saved their lives?" I ask her with a smile and she just shrugs again.

"It was no big deal. I was happy to help them." She says turning back out to the creek. I look in the bucket next to her and she's already caught five fish. I guess I was doing it wrong.

"You're amazing you know that." I tell her as I scoot closer.

She turns and looks at me before saying, "No, I'm not." She shakes her head.

"Yes you are." I nod. "You have to know that you're amazing."

"Really Spencer I'm not." She shakes her head with more conviction this time.

"What do you mean?" I question. The look on her face and tone of her voice are telling me that she's serious about what she's saying.

"We really should get dinner started guys!" Jayden yells down to us. Ashley takes her line out the water and stands with her bucket of fish.

"What did you mean, Ashley?" I question her again but she just shakes her head.

"I'll tell you later, I promise." She says and kisses my cheek before walking up the hill to join the rest of the group.

I get this weird feeling Ashley is hiding something from me.


	24. Goodies In Garden City

I love that I'm back to daily updates as well. I hope this continues. :) I also hope you enjoy the chapter.

* * *

"Maybe we should find a different route." Glen turns and says to us. Him, Aiden, Ashley and myself are scavenging for more ammo and toiletries while the rest of the group scavenges for food and gas.

"There's no other way to get to that police station." Ashley shakes her head looking around. We're hiding behind a car as five walkers devour a body in the middle of the street.

"We won't be able to get close enough. Where's your bow, Ash?"Aiden turns to his friend and asks.

"In the van." She says dropping her head. She never leaves that bow anywhere. At least not since I met her. "You have your knife?" She asks Aiden as she takes hers from her belt clip.

"Yeah." He nods.

"I have mine too." Glen says.

"Me too." I add.

"Give them to me." She says holding her hand out and we all place our knives in her hand.

"What are you doing?" Glen asks her.

"Clearing a path." Is all she says before getting up and taking off toward the walkers.

"Ashley what the hell?" I call out after her but she just keeps running. She stabs a walker in the head once she reaches it and side tosses a knife into another walkers head before tossing another one forward into another walker then quickly pulling it out and stabbing the other two before we could even register what just happened.

"How does she do that?" Glen turns and asks Aiden who shrugs with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"All set." Ashley says coming back to us with a smile. Handing us each back our knife.

"Thanks." I say with an open mouth looking up at her.

"We should probably hurry up and search the police station." Glen says and Ashley and I stare into each others eyes.

"We'll um... give you two a minute." Aiden says chuckling a bit before him and Glen get up and walk towards the police station.

"How are you so good at this?" I ask her after a moment.

"My dad taught me some stuff." She says and shrugs like it's no big deal. She just killed five walkers with four pocket knives.

Who doesn't think that's a big deal out there raise your hand...

No one?

Exactly!

"You just killed them without even-"

"Shh." She says putting a finger to my lips. "You talk way too much Carlin." She adds and smiles before she leans in a kisses me. "I can never get tired of your lips." She whispers, pulling back.

"Shut up and kiss me." Is my reply and kiss me she does...

…..

I need a moment.

…..

"Are you two gonna make out all day or come and help us scavenge?" Aiden says chuckling above us. Both Ashley and I groan out of the kiss before giving Aiden the most evil look we could muster.

"I told you not to bother them." Glen says from somewhere on the other side of the car.

"Well we got places to scavenge and other things to do besides make out." He says and shrugs.

"And you couldn't manage alone for five freaking minutes?" Ashley asks him as she helps me up from the ground.

"Probably." He shrugs again.

"You know..." Ashley starts as we all walk towards the police station. "I could kill you before you even knew what hit you." She says in a serious tone that causes Aiden to look down at her and question the seriousness of her statement.

"Dude, you know she can." Glen says from beside him.

"We're gonna be up here." Aiden says pointing to nowhere in particular before jogs away from me and Ashley and Glen follows.

"That was kind of mean." I tell Ashley through a chuckle.

"Yeah, I know." She giggles along with me.

–

After we cleared the police station Ashley gave assignments.

"Search the cage and Spencer and I will see what we can find in the lockers." She tells Aiden and Glen who nod and head to the gun cage.

"I think you just wanted to get me alone." I say to Ashley once we reach the locker room.

"Then I'd think you'd be right." She says with a smirk before gently pushing me into a locker and kissing me.

"Maybe we should actually look for stuff." I say after a moment, gently pushing her back from me.

She groans and rolls her eyes before lightly slamming her head on the locker behind me. " Yeah okay." She says a stands back.

I pull her back into a quick kiss. "Later." I tell her and smile which coaxes a smile from her.

"Fine." She says and pecks my lips. We start opening lockers; looking for any and everything we can to take back to camp.

"Look what I found." I call to Ashley on the other side of the lockers.

"What is it?" She asks coming up beside me. I show her the contents of locker 213 an officer Stanley and we both giggle. "I'm sure Aiden and Glen will appreciate these." She says stuffing them in her pocket.

"Why would a police officer need those in their locker?" I ask as we move on to the next one.

"Maybe they were dating someone who worked here." She shrugs.

"Or maaaaaaybe they were some kinda of criminal rapist that used being a police officer as a cover and went around abusing innocent women." I say with a head nod and a raised brow. Ashley burst into laughter before saying.

"You have a very vivid imagination Spencer." She says trying to control her laughter.

"Well... it coulda happened... you don't know." I say pouting.

"Aww, no pouting." She says and kisses it away.

"Do you two ever stop?" Aiden comes into the locker room and says.

Ashley groans and pulls back. This is the second time that Aiden has interrupted us today. He must have a death wish. "You're one to talk." She says through gritted teeth.

"Um..." Aiden says and clears his throat as my brother appears from behind the wall. "We found something really awesome." He says and grins.

"A .223 Winchester?" Ashley asks and all of us look at her with a raised brow. "A rifle." She clarifies.

"No." Aiden shakes his head. "But we did find a bunch of handguns and a few shot guns. We have ammo for weeks but that's not even the best part." He adds and wiggles his brows.

"What?" Ashley and I both question.

"Just come with us." Glen says, his smile matching Aidens. We follow them into what looks to be a lounge or something. We walk through the lounge and into a shower area.

"Why are we in here?" I question. Oh what I'd give for a hot shower right now. It's been far too long and washing up in creeks and rivers just isn't cutting it.

"Are you trying to torture us?" Ashley asks. I guess she's having the same feelings as me right now.

"Look dummies." Aiden says turning the knob on the shower. When the water starts to flow out Ashley and I both gasps.

"What the hell?" I ask.

"We think they have their own water supply and a generator too, cause look..." Glen says flipping on a light switch and the power comes on.

"Holy shit!" Ashley says. "Is it hot?" She asks pointing to the water.

"Yeah." Aiden nods, sticking his hand under the cascading water.

"How in the hell did you two find this out?" Ashley asks as she starts to strip off her clothes. I give her a puzzled look.

"We were um... we...um..." Aiden stutters out and glances at Glen who turns a dark red. We notice that both their hair is wet and I roll my eyes at them.

"Oh." Ashley says rolling her eyes. "Speaking of that, here." She says grabbing the condoms out of her pocket and tossing them to Aiden.

"Where'd you get these?" He asks, examining them.

"Does it matter?" She asks and he shakes his head and stuffs them into his pocket.

"I'm sure mom and dad will be happy to know that you and Aiden will now be using protection." I say to Glen.

"What?" Aiden practically shrieks.

Oops!

Does he not know that our parent's know?

"Nothing." Glen says quickly.

"Could you guys scram, I wanna shower." Ashley says to Glen and Aiden.

"Yeah but don't take forever we need to get back to the others."

"Yeah you're one to talk when you and Glen have already—"

"Okay!" I say cutting her off. "I really don't wanna hear any of this."

"We'll be out front." Glen says, shaking his head and laughing. Immediately the mood in the room changes. Ashley walks past me to close the door and waits a moment before turning around and facing me. She walks over to me slowly. Half dressed. Only in a bra and shorts.

I swallow the lemon in my throat as she closes the distance between us completely.

"Are you okay with this?" She asks, just above a whisper. I'm not entirely sure what she's referring to, but I nod anyways. She begins to play with the hem of my shirt, tugging at it a bit before I lift my arms and she pulls it over my head. "Are you sure?" She leans in and whispers in my ear. I pull back and look into her eyes. They're asking me something that my lips don't know how to communicate.

They won't move.

My brain is saying something that my mouth won't convey. So I do the next best thing to talking. I pull her into a kiss that I'm sure is telling her how badly I want her right now. I've never been with a girl in this way before but it feels completely right to give myself up to Ashley. Maybe it's her smile or the way she looks at me...or possibly the way she climbs trees and makes fishing rods in five seconds flat, or it could be the fact that she saved my parent's lives when she didn't even know them or the countless amount of times she's saved mine. It could be any of those things. Or it could be none.

It could be as simple as: in a time like this...a world where everyone and anyone could be gone at any second... she's here with me...wanting this feeling...with me.

And that's all that matters to me right now.

–

"Find anything good?" Tim asks as we walk up to the cars.

"Plenty." Aiden says tossing him the bag of weapons.

"Oh wow." Tim says looking into the bag and then tossing it to my dad who looks equally impressed. "We also found some soap, tissue, toothpaste, shampoo and con-"

"Condiments." Glen speaks up loudly, cutting me off. Ashley and I both giggle.

"Condiments?" Tim questions.

"Yeah you know...like um...ketchup and mustard." Glen clarifies, nodding.

"Okay." Tim says a bit confused, glancing over at Ashley and I giggling before shaking his head and mumbling 'teenagers'.

"We should get going." My dad says to the group.

"Are you okay?" Ashley leans over and whispers in my ear as we walk towards the van. I replay the last hour in my head and smile.

"I'm better than okay." I tell her and I can't help but notice the insanely wide smile that spreads across her face as we climb into the van.


	25. Timing Is Everything

For those of you worried about me rushing the story to make it a certain length...don't be. I promise to do this story justice, wherever I end it. Thanks for all the kind reviews from the last chapter. :) I love reading them.

* * *

"_Spencer you're cheating no fair!" Lindsey yells as she chases after me. _

"_Glen, be a big brother and save meeeee!" I yell to Glen who is somewhere hiding probably._

"_Spencer stop cheating!" Lindsey chuckles out._

"_I'm not cheating!" I shout as I dodge a water balloon. "You're just not fast enough!" I smile and dodge another one. _

"_Troy help me get her!" She yells to her younger cousin who's visiting with her family for the weekend. Glen and I have been over pretty much all day everyday since Friday. We've been playing all sorts of games this weekend, and having a blast doing so. Right now we're having a water balloon fight. It's me and Glen against Lindsey and her twelve-year-old little cousin. They can't find Glen and I'm too quick. So right now, technically Glen and I are winning. _

"_Glen!" I shout from behind a tree as Troy and Lindsey charge towards me. Suddenly, Glen appears from inside the dog house with two water balloons in hand. He hits Troy first, in his leg and then tosses another one and hits Lindsey in the back._

"_We win!" He shouts when they both hit the ground like they've been shot. We're teenagers...we can be dramatic. "Oh yeah, we win, you lose, oh yeah." Glen says doing a little victory dance._

"_What the hell was that?" I walk up next to Glen and ask._

"_I was hiding and waiting for the right moment to attack." Glen says confidently. I give him a look. "Well it worked didn't it?" He asks and I roll my eyes at him and walk away. "Whaaaaat?" He calls after me as I stomp away into the house._

–

"Glen stop!" I half shout as Glen chases after me with some sort of dead animal.

"Not so much noise guys." Tim tells us. We're taking a break from driving while everyone grabs a bite to eat, uses the bathroom and stretches.

"Mom make him stop!" I run and hide behind my mom.

"Glen, leave your sister alone." She tells him in an uninterested tone.

"Well you're no fun." Glen huffs and tosses the rodent somewhere in the grass.

"Thanks." I let out a sigh of relief and say to my mom.

"Mhm." She says looking at a map.

"Where are we?"

"Little Rock I think."

"How much longer 'til we get to Atlanta?" I question.

"Maybe nine hours."

"Okay." I say cheerfully before walking towards Ashley who's sitting on the ground by the van reading a book we found under the seat in the van.

Isn't she just the cutest?

"Spencer." My mom calls after me.

"Yeah?" I ask, turning around and walking back to her.

"You're different." She says, looking up from the map at me.

"No I'm not." I shake my head.

"Yeah, you seem different." She nods and scans my face with narrowed eyes.

"Tim says we're gonna head out now." Glen says as him and Aiden walk up next to us.

"Glen, isn't there something different about your sister?" My mother asks my brother and I can feel my cheeks go red. I'm not sure if him and Aiden are aware of what happened between Ashley and I at the police station but I don't want to find out.

"Yeah there is mom." Glen says as him and Aiden chuckle.

"What do you think it is?" She asks Glen but is looking directly at me.

"I don't know mom, maybe we should ask Spencer. What's different about you Spencer?" He asks in a sing song voice. Of course he knows. I don't know why I would think he didn't. And because I blabbed on his 'relations' with Aiden, I doubt he's gonna hold back this little information.

"Nothing is different." I shake my head and shrug. Glancing back at Ashley who is looking this way now.

"Something is definitely different." My mother says with a nod.

"Yes Spencer, do tell...what's different." I hit Glen in the stomach before turning back to my mother.

"Nothings different!"

"Somethings different." She says.

"Will you drop this."

"Tell mom what's different baby sis." Glen says with a smile.

"Yeah! I wanna know." Aiden chimes in.

"It's nothing." I shake my head.

"It's definitely something." My mother says.

"Can we please move on?"

"Not until you say what's different." Glen says.

"If you say the word different, one more time I swear to God I'm gonna cas-"

"Ah ha!" My mother says snapping her fingers in realization. Uh oh! I'm totally busted. I swallow hard and wait for her to speak again. "Did you cut your hair?" She asks, lifting my hair in her hands. I let out a sigh of relief and smile.

"Yeah, just a bit." I say then turn to Glen who looks bored now. Him and Aiden walk away towards the van.

"Well, you look nice." She smiles and folds the map up.

"Alright, let's head out." Tim says and everyone files back into their vehicles.

"Thanks mom." I say awkwardly, backing up to the van.

"What was that about?" Ashley asks as I turn around.

"Geez!" I grab my chest. "You've gotta stop doing that." She scared the crap outta me.

"Sorry." She says, her lips curling up into a smile. "So what was that about?" She asks nodding in my moms direction.

"Nothing." I shake my head.

"It didn't seem like nothing." She says quirking a brow.

"I thought my mom might have found out about what happened at the police station." I say quickly and Ashley's eyes go wide.

"What? Did she?!" She asks, an entire octave higher than her normal speaking voice.

I giggle before answering. "No." I shake my head.

"Oh." She says trying to pretend like she wasn't just worried.

"Ash, you driving?" Aiden asks, leaning out the van.

"Yeah." She says, quickly turning on her heels and practically running around to the driver's side. I get in the passenger side as Glen and Aiden climb in the backseat.

"You're a jerk Glen." I look back and tell my brother as Ashley pulls off.

"Yeah, I know." He says smiling.

–

"Spencer wake up." Ashley shakes me awake. It's dark outside now.

"Are we there yet?" I ask in a soft voice, opening one eye.

"No we're not. I think Tim has a flat." She says giggling at me.

"What?" I question. I didn't say anything funny.

"Your cuteness is unbearable sometimes." She says and leans over and kisses my lips.

"If being cute will get me kisses then call me Elmo." I say when she pulls back.

"Elmo isn't cute, Spencer." She says with a serious face.

"What? Of course he is." I retort.

"No." She says firmly. "He's creepy." She adds.

"Nonsense." I shake my head.

"What kinda toy giggles all the time? He has to be high or something." She says and I can tell she's so serious right now. I burst into laughter.

"And I'm the cute one." I say and shake my head.

"You two are ridiculous." We turn around and see Kyla shaking her head at us. Aiden and Glen are asleep on the back seat. Both lightly snoring.

"Shut up and go back to sleep Ky." Ashley says to her sister, who does just that, before turning back to me and saying, "I'm gonna see what's going on okay." I nod as she gets out of the van. I turn around in my seat so I can look out the back window at the other two stopped vehicles. My dad and Tim are out their cars talking to Ashley about something. A few moments later Ashley comes back to the car. "Tim's van has a flat. They're gonna see if they can change it quickly, if not we're diving them into both vans until we can get another car for them."

"How much longer until we reach Atlanta?" I question, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I don't know why I'm so tired.

"Five hours maybe." She shrugs.

"I gotta pee." I say opening the door to the van.

"You want me to come with?" She questions, grabbing her bow from the floor.

"No." I shake my head and grab my bag. "I got this one." I assure her with a smile. She looks at me apprehensively for a moment before nodding and letting me walk off.

"Where you going baby sis?" I hear Glen yell from the van.

"To pee!" I shout back like everyone needed to know my business. I walk further into the woods. Taking my gun off my holster as I search for a place to do my business. I don't want to go too far away from the group but I also wanna be far enough away from wandering eyes.

One thing I can tell you that really and truly sucks about a zombie apocalypse... being a girl over the age of lets say thirteen. I mean, it happens for girls younger than that but thirteen is pretty much the age where everyone gets it.

Ah! The joys of being a woman.

Right!

More like fuck you mother nature!

After I do my business I pull my clothes up and start heading back up to the highway.

"Argh! Ungh! Arrrh!" Fuck my life. I turn around and see three zombie shuffling towards me.

Why is it always when I'm going to the bathroom? What is it with these zombies and knowing exactly when I'm at my most vulnerable?

I take off running towards the highway. Not wanting to waste bullets when I can simply outrun them when the unthinkable happens. I trip over a fucking bush and drop my bag.

Yes that bag!

My bag full of skittles and other essential supplies. It slides halfway across the fucking forest. Okay I'm being dramatic. It's like ten feet in front of me but still... how the fuck did it go so far? I hop up as quickly as I can, and make a run for my bag.

Just my luck... two more walkers are coming from the direction my bag landed. There's no way I can make it to my bag without getting caught.

I have to get my skittles though! You don't even understand.

Or maybe you do! Either way... I'm not leaving without that bag.

"Fuck!" I say as the walkers gain on me. I need to make a decision and fast. I decide to run in a circle around them. I take off to my left and they all follow. I run around them and make it to the other side but the walkers by my bag aren't moving fast enough so I circle again. This time when I make it around to my bag they're far enough away that I can grab it. I reach down for it but of course it's stuck to something. I pull as hard as I can, breaking the strap but getting my bag free and just as I do a walker comes from behind and bites my arm.

"Fuuuuuuuck!" I scream out as I turn around and push the thing off of me. Next thing I hear are five gunshots as I hit the ground.

"Shit, shit, shit. Spencer!" I hear Glens voice as he runs over to me. "Baby sis talk to me." He turns my face to look at him. "Are you bitten?" He questions.

"No." I shake my head.

"But I saw-"

"Look." I cut him off. Lifting the sleeve of my shirt.

"Who taught you that?" He asks, examining the padding covering my arms. Two thick pieces of rubber taped on each arm.

"Ashley did it at the police station." I tell him as I unwrap the tape and pull the rubber off to examine my arm.

"No teeth marks." He says, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Nope." I shake my head and smile. "Wait..." I say, racking my brain to replay what Glen had just said. "What do you mean you saw?" I question him. "Were you watching that entire time?" I question him and he gives me a guilty smile. "What the hell Glen?" I question, punching him the arm. "I coulda died." I point out.

"I'm sooooorry baby sis. I was waiting for the right moment."

"For what?" I question.

"To make my move." He shrugs and smiles as he helps me off the ground.

"Always trying to be the hero." I shake my head and roll my eyes at my crazy brother.

"Yeah. And timing is everything." He smiles and puts an arm around me.

"Let's not tell Ashley about this okay?" I say and he nods.

"Mom and dad?" He questions.

"Definitely not." I shake my head.

"My lips are sealed." He says zipping his lips.

"And Glen."

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for saving me." I say softly.

"Anytime baby sis." He says and kisses my forehead.


	26. Hell Hath No Fury Like Ashley Scorned

Hope you guys enjoy the chapter. :)

* * *

"It might have been nice if we would have gotten an address from the person on the radio." Aiden chuckles as we all stand around deciding our next move. The guy on the radio didn't tell us where to go exactly in Atlanta, and from the looks of it...Atlanta isn't a small city.

"We're gonna have to search for it." Tim says.

"There's no way." Ashley shakes her head. "I lived here Tim, Atlanta's way too big." Ashley adds.

"Well what else do you suppose we do?" He looks around at the group and asks.

"We've been traveling for over a day now. I think we should get some rest and decide all this tomorrow." My suggests and Jo and Jayden nod along with her.

"Enough resting guys. We're here. We should really find this quarantine before nightfall." Tim says.

"That's only in a few hours, Tim. How do you suppose we do that?" My dad asks.

"I'm from Atlanta." Jackie speaks up. Oh, forgot she was even here. "I was away on vacation when the outbreak started, but maybe I can narrow it down a bit to places I think it might be." She says and shrugs.

"That's good, Jackie." Tim nods. "We're looking for places that would be large enough to hold massive amounts of people at once. Any places like that around here?" He asks and Jackie nods.

"A few actually." She says.

"Well, let's start at the closest ones and make our way from there." Tim says and the group agrees.

"But if we don't find it in one of the close places we stop the night, get some rest and start in the morning?" My mom asks Tim who reluctantly agrees. We all file back into our cars and drive around the surprisingly empty streets of Atlanta.

"I haven't seen a single walker." I point out to Ashley who is following behind the other two cars. My dad's van is in the front because Jackie is giving directions.

"Yeah, me either." Ashley says looking out her window.

"Maybe they're all sleeping." Aiden says from the backseat.

"Maybe you should go back to sleep." Ashley playfully snaps at her friend.

"Or grow a brain." Kyla chimes in.

"Hey!" Glen shouts at them, protecting his little boyfriend.

"Thank you." Aiden says to Glen and kisses him. I had to turn away, their cuteness is too much for me.

"I think we're here." Ashley says stopping the van as the other two vans pull to a stop.

"What is this place?" I ask looking at the massive domed building in front of me.

"The Georgia Dome, I believe." Ashley says as we get out of the car.

"This shit is huge." Aiden says behind me.

"Watch your mouth young man." My mother tells him from in front of us.

"Sorry." He mumbles to her and Glen chuckles and puts his arm around his shoulder and whispers something in his ear.

"It doesn't look like anyone is here." Owen says. "This can't be the place, can it?" He questions.

"It doesn't look that way. Maybe we should go take a look around anyways." Tim suggests.

"Sounds like a plan. Who's going and who's staying?" Ashley asks from beside me.

"Owen, Arthur, Carmen, you, and myself are going. Everyone else stays." Tim says.

"Hey! I wanna go!" I half shout. Ashley smiles.

"We need you to stay here with your brother and Aiden to guard the others."

"No fair." I whisper in Ashley's ear.

"We'll be back in a jiffy." She says and kisses my cheek.

"Let's load up and move out." Tim says to those names he called. They all ready their weapons and then leave to check the dome.

"Missing your boo?" Glen comes up next to me and asks.

"Piss off." I tell him as I flop down on the ground next to the van.

"Awww. She's coming back Spence don't be such a..." He trails off because of the look I'm giving him. "I think I hear mom calling me." He says and practically runs out the van. I don't think Ashley and I have been separated once since we've met.

This sucks.

–

"How long has it been?" My mother asks, referring to how long the other half of the group has been off checking out this massive place.

"Two hours maybe." Jackie says looking at her watch.

"That's far too long." Jayden says.

"Maybe Aiden, Glen and I should go look for them." I suggest. I mean that is my dad, girlfriend, temporary guardian, closest adult friend and that guy Owen in there. What if something went wrong?

"That's taking away our best shooters. What if a herd comes through." Jo says.

"Well how long do we wait? We're losing daylight. They were only supposed to be checking this place out. Not setting up camp." Aiden says.

"He's right. This isn't like Tim." Jo adds.

"Hello people." We hear a deep voice say behind us and we turn and see a very tall man and a group of about thirteen or so men, women and children.

"Hello." Glen says in a deep voice stepping in front of the group. Pushing me and Kyla behind him. My mom, Jo, Jayden and Jackie all stand up from the ground, grabbing Jessica and Francisco and join us on our right. Aiden comes and stands next to Glen on his left and Leo stands on his right. I unsnap the holster of my gun on my hip and ready myself in case I need to use it. I see everyone else do the same.

The man chuckles before saying, "Nice formation."

"Can we help you?" Aiden says in a firm tone.

"As a matter of fact... you can." The man says and smiles. He moves to the side and the six men standing behind him all draw their weapons. We do the same.

"We don't want any trouble." Leo says pointing his gun at the man. I push Francisco and Jessica inside the van and Kyla ducks down next to me. Ashley says she's not allowed to have a gun. I think now would be a good time to make an exception.

"Well you found some." The tall man says.

"Look man, you and your group need to just leave before something bad happens." Glen tells the man who lets out a shrill of a laugh.

"You're outnumbered my man." He says.

"You're outgunned." Glen retorts.

The man chuckles once and stares at Glen with narrowed eyes. "We just want some supplies. Food, water, medicine." He says and moves closer to us along with the rest of his group. The women and children of the group look terrified. This seems like something this group has done before. Going around taking things that people have worked hard to acquire.

"We don't have any extra." Glen tells him.

"We weren't asking." The man says.

"Well you're not getting any of our supplies." Glen tells him, moving closer to him.

"Glen." I whisper. He doesn't know what this guy is capable of.

"It's fine." He looks back and tells me.

"Look son, we don't want to harm any of you. We just want your supplies."

"Well I said you can't have them!" Glen says in a stern voice to the man.

"Better simmer down young man."

"You need to leave." Aiden says.

"We're not leaving without some supplies." The man looks around Glen and tells Aiden.

"You can walk away voluntarily or I can make you leave." Aiden says moving up next to Glen. Gun still aimed at the man while the rest of us aim our guns at the six aimed at us.

The man chuckles again. Apparently amused by Aiden and Glen. "Fred and Edward." He says then nods towards our vehicles.

"If you take one more step I swear I'll shoot you." I tell the two men who have started walking towards us.

"Put that gun down little girl." One of the men say.

"I'll show you a little girl." I say and pull the trigger, hitting the shorter of the two men in the arm. "Next time I'll aim for your heart." I say through gritted teeth.

"She shot me! She fucking shot me!" The guys shrieks and falls on the ground writhing in pain.

"Looks like we've got a problem on our hands now." The tall man says.

"No problem." Glen shakes his head. "You need to leave before I tell my sister to shoot you in the face." Glen says to the man who smiles.

"Get their stuff." He tells the rest of the men who charge us, too quickly for any of us to react. I think I hit the ground first a sharp pain hitting my stomach as well as my face. My mom and Jo fell next to me. Both from blows to the head from the men. I see Glen, Leo and Aiden trying to fight to keep the men from taking our things but it's no use. There's too many of them and not enough of us. They grab a few things from the vans and start to run away. The next thing that happened was a blur really. I tried to focus on what was unfolding in front of me, but my head was pounding and my eyes desperately wanted to close to stop the pain.

Unmistakably though, I remember an arrow whizzing through the air, hitting the tall man in the head. He hit the ground so hard I felt like it moved. Four or five gunshots rang out and bodies were falling all around me. I couldn't tell if they were our people or theirs.

I couldn't fight the pain anymore so I closed my eyes.

–

"Spencer...Spencer...Spencer are you okay? Wake up Spencer." A light voice shakes me awake.

"Ashley?" I question, barely able to open my eyes. There was still a mind stinging on the right side of my face. I lifted my hand to touch it. Big mistake. "Owie." I say and drop my hand quickly.

"Don't touch it Spence, you have knot there." She tells me as she examines it.

Then I remember the events from earlier. "My mom!" I say shooting up from the van seat. Another big mistake. "Ouuuuuch." I cry out. I look down at my abdomen and see blood seeping through a bandage. "What..." I trail off, putting a hand over the bandage.

"You were shot Spencer, don't you remember?" She questions me and I stare at her blankly. I remember shooting that other guy but I don't remember anyone returning fire.

"Am I-"

"Carmen got the bullet out and stitched you up while you were sleeping. Here." She says handing me two pills and a bottle of water. "She said you need to take these to keep it from getting infected and this one is for the pain. Heck of a stash you had." She adds and smiles.

"For times like these I guess." I say and half smile.

"Well aren't you little miss prepared." She says returning a smile.

"Is everyone else okay?" I ask after taking both pills.

"Yeah." She nods. "Jayden and your mom both have bruised cheekbones, but everyone else is fine." She nods.

"And those people?" I question.

"All the men are dead." She says softly, like she's not proud of what went down.

"Did you...I don't remember what happened...I just remember seeing an arrow and then I heard gun shots and then it's all pretty blurry." I tell her.

"I um..."

"She kicked their asses is what she did." Glen peeks into the van and says. Took down the first douche with an arrow and then shot the rest before they even knew what happened." Glen says proudly.

"Glen you shouldn't be excited about me killing people." Ashley says and rolls her eyes at him with a small smile.

"When you do it as badass as you, how can I not be?" He says and kisses her on the forehead before leaving.

"You save my life...again." I say and smile. "You saved all of us." I point out.

"No biggie." She shakes her head. "They were threatening the lives of my family. You guys are all my family now and nobody will ever hurt you." She says before leaning down and kissing me.

"Ashley..." I say when she pulls back.

"Yeah?" She questions, worry evident on her face from the tone of my voice.

"I think...I think I love you." I finally get out and she stares at me with wide eyes before her lips curl up into a smile.

"I love you too, Spencer." She says and kisses me again.

"Ouch." I pull back, holding my head and my stomach.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She says cringing and holding up her hands.

"It's fine." I shake my head and smile through the throbbing pain.

"Get some rest, Spence. We're staying here tonight. I'm gonna go keep guard, come out when you're ready." She tells me and I nod before she gives me another dazzling smile then exits the van.

I'm definitely in love with this girl...


	27. To Seek That Which Cannot Be Found

"_How can there not be one safe place to go, where the hell is our government?!" Tim shouts as we walk through the woods. We've been running from walkers all day. It seems like no matter where we go we can't seem to shake them._

"_Maybe we should leave the city." Glen says from behind me._

"_And go where Glen?" Tim turns around and asks. Not in a malicious tone or anything just sheer curiosity._

"_I don't know." Glen shrugs. "There has to be somewhere that's not overrun with zombies." _

"_We need more evidence than that. I have my family to think about. And you two as well now. I won't let you just run off and go and search for something that may or may not exists. We need to stick together on this." _

"_We wouldn't go anywhere without you guys." I tell Tim._

"_It's becoming too hard here. Maybe if we go to a city with less population we'll be okay." Glen suggests. Tim raises a brow at Glen. "Ooo I know, what about Nebraska." Glen says._

"_Glen that's a state not a city." I say shaking my head at my brother as we start walking again. Even Francisco chuckles at Glen's sheer stupidity. _

"_I knew that." Glen says narrowing his eyes at me. _

"_I'm sure you did." I say through a laugh._

"_All I'm saying is, maybe we should stay away from the big cities and stick to the small places like..." He trails off and looks up at me._

"_Like..?" I bait him._

"_Omaha?" He says but in a questioning tone. _

"_I'll take cities in Nebraska for two hundred Alex." I joke and he hits me. _

"_Ow!" I shriek._

"_Glen don't hit your sister." Jo tells him._

"_Come on let's get somewhere safe before nightfall." Tim says, shaking his head and chuckling at us._

–

"We need to make a decision and fast." I hear someone say outside the van I was sleeping in. I lift my head and everyone standing talking by one of the other vans.

"How can you possibly want them apart of this group after what they did?" My mom asks Tim.

"According to you guys they never did anything wrong, right?"

"That doesn't meant that they weren't going to, or they still won't." Aiden pipes up.

I look at the window to my left and see the group of women and children sitting on the grass. Are we contemplating taking them?

"What's going on?" I ask getting out of the van.

"Honey you should really lay back down and get your rest." My dad tells me trying to escort me back into the van.

"No." I push him away. "You guys can't be serious. They shot me."

"Spencer they're-"

"I don't care what they are. They shot me and I don't want them in this group." I say sternly and loud enough for their group to hear.

"Actually my dad shot you. None of us even had guns." A girl about my age comes around the van and says.

"Did I ask you?" I turn to her and say with a raised brow.

"I was just-"

"Shutting up." I say and roll my eyes before turning back to my group. "We can't take them, this isn't-"

"You guys killed all the men in our group. If you send us away you're killing us." The girl cuts me off and says.

"They tried to kill us." I point out. Ashley comes and stands next to me.

"Spence calm down." She says looking down at my wound on my stomach. You'll tear your stitches." She adds.

"Ashley you can't let them do this! These people shouldn't be allowed to..." I trail off as I feel lightheaded and the next thing I know I'm halfway to the ground but not before Ashley catches me.

"I told you that you were gonna tear your stitches." She says shaking her head as Carmen comes to my side. They help me up into the van and Carmen is handed a kit by Jayden.

"This is gonna hurt Spencer. I don't have time to-"

"Just do it." I cut her off as I glance down at the needle she just took from her bag. "Oh that's big." I say and drop my head back on the seat. Ashley grabs my hand and squeezes it tight.

"You're gonna be fine." She whispers in my ear.

"Now Spence." Carmen says as she sticks the needle through my skin. The scream that erupted from my mouth was piercing. I felt like I was getting stabbed with a scorching hot blade over and over again.

"It's okay Spence." Ashley whispers in my ear as I continue to scream.

"Last one." Carmen says then puts a fresh bandage on it. "All set." She smiles and exits the van.

"You okay?" Ashley asks softly.

I try to calm my breathing before answering. "Yeah." I breathe out.

"Okay. I'm gonna go finish having this conversation with the group, you'll be okay for a moment?" She asks and I nod. She gets out of the van and try to will my eyes to stay open but sleep wins.

–

"So they're staying with us?" I ask as Glen drives to the next destination on Jackie's list of possible places the quarantine could be.

"For now." Ashley nods. I roll my eyes and she smiles. "It's gonna be fine Spence. I'll keep them in check I promise."

"Mhm." I say and can't help but smile at her.

"We're here." Glen yells back to us.

"Where is here exactly?" I ask trying to sit up and see. My head has been on Ashley's lap the entire ride as she strokes my hair. It's quite comforting actually.

"I saw a sign that said Gwinnett center when we were pulling up Kyla says.

"This place is huge." Aiden says looking out the window, up the hill at the building.

"It doesn't look like there are people there." I say sitting up, looking out the window.

"I'm gonna go talk to Tim and your dad." Ashley says gently lifting my head up.

"Don't leave me." I whine.

"I'll be right back I promise." She says and kisses my forehead before getting out of the van.

"Someone's getting needy." Glen says from the front seat.

"Glen is Atlanta a city or a state?"

"What?" He asks, turning red. "It's a um-"

"And remember," I say cutting him off. "...just because I have a gunshot wound does not mean I won't still beat your ass, Glen." I retort. Kyla and Aiden giggle.

"Noted." He says and gets out of the van with Aiden and Kyla. Great, alone again.

"We think this is the place Spence." Glen comes back to the van and says.

"What are we gonna do?" I ask.

"We're gonna go and check it out. You okay to walk?" He questions.

"I'm fine." I say getting up and sliding out of the van.

"Are you sure because we can-"

"I'm fine." I say walking past him to the rest of the group.

"Spencer what are you doing you should be-"

"Resting. I'm well aware of my condition you guys." I say cutting Ashley off. "I'm fine. I promise not to shout at people and tear my stitches again.

"You can't climb this hill Spencer, and what if there are zombies what do you plan on doing then?" My mom asks.

"Running." I throw out.

"You can barely walk." My dad chimes in.

"Guys I'm fine really. Please stop making this such a big deal."

"Fine." Ashley says coming and standing next to me. "But the moment you-"

"Yup. Got it." I cut her off and she smiles and shakes her head at me.

"Everyone load up to head out!" Tim tells the group and everyone does that.

"Are they coming?" I ask, glancing over at the other group who rode in a different truck that Ashley hot wired for them. I don't trust them riding with us so I'm glad at least that arrangement was made.

"Yeah, the girl angel is actually a pretty good shot." Ashley says and smiles.

"Who's that?" I question.

"The girl you went off on earlier." Ashley says and smiles.

"Oh." Is all I say, turning my attention to the group of outcasts. The girl angel glances up at me and stares at me with narrowed eyes before looking away and checking her clip for bullets.

"You ready?" Ashley asks, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Yeah." I turn to her and say.

"Let's move you guys. Everyone be on alert." Tim tells the group as we move towards the hill.

I'm really hoping this is the right place because I really am getting tired of running.


	28. Where Do We Go From Here?

"It seems as though we got off on the wrong foot." The girl Angel comes up next to me and says as we climb the hill.

"So." I shrug and turn to Ashley who looks like she's trying to hold back a smile.

"So..." She drawls out. "I was thinking we could get a redo."

"And why would I want that?" I ask her seriously. I'm not trying to be mean but... wait I'm lying, I am trying to be mean and this chick is making it extremely hard right now.

"I'm sorry about what my dad and those goofballs did-"

"Your dad is dead right?" I turn to her and ask.

"Technically he's my step dad but, yeah." She nods.

"Would you like to join him?" I ask and Ashley pulls me aside, away from the girl.

"We'll be right back." She tells Angel who nods.

"What?" I question as we walk away from the girl.

"Spencer, why are you being so mean to her?" She asks with a raised brow.

"Because I don't want her here." I answer truthfully, looking down at the ground.

"What did you tell me a while ago about humanity and people?" She asks and I roll my eyes. Of course she throws my own words back at me.

"That because the world has gone to shit, if the few people who are left lose their humanity...then there's no point." I say in a lazy tone, rolling my eyes with each word.

"Exactly." She says smiling. "They have no where else to go Spencer. If they're gonna make it then they'll need a group, when have you ever turned people away? That douche Rick was apart of your group even though he didn't deserve it, so why can't you just give these people a chance?" She questions and I sigh.

"Fine." I say and pout.

"Don't be cute." She says, kissing away my pout. "Now go be a nice girl and talk to Angel." She lightly pushes me in the girls direction. "I'm gonna go to the front with Tim." She adds before taking off up the hill.

"Hi." I say once I reach Angel.

"Hey." She replies.

"Uh... I guess I'm sorry about being an ass." I say and roll my eyes.

"I get it. My group tried to take the things that you guys have worked hard for and one of them kinda shot you... so I'm sorry." She says.

"It's cool. I shot one those assholes too." I smile at the thought. I never shot a human before, but that guy definitely deserved it.

"Everyone get down!" Tim shouts from further up the hill. We all drop to the ground. Me, a little faster than I needed to.

"Shit." I mumble and look down at my abdomen. Great, I didn't tear my stitches.

"Are you okay?" Angel asks.

"Yeah, just hurts a bit." I tell her looking down at my war wound. Wow, I have a war wound. We crawl up the hill to where Tim, Ashley and my dad are and we see. Thousands of walkers.

"Holy shi-"

"Watch it, Spencer." My mom tells me. Angel stifles a laugh.

"This explains why there were no walkers in the city." Tim says.

"Why are they all here, just walking around the parking lot?" Aiden asks as the walkers just walk around in circles in the parking lot. They aren't as aggressive as the previous walkers we've come in contact with. It's like they've all taken a chill pill or something.

"I think this was the quarantine, maybe something went bad and they got overrun." Tim says.

"This is crazy." I say for no reason.

"What do we do now?" My dad asks, turning to Tim.

"I don't know." He shrugs.

"If all the walkers are here, then that means that the city is a goldmine." Aiden says.

"He's right." Glen pipes up. "Maybe we can just stay in Atlanta since there are no walkers here." Glen adds.

"And what if they get out of these fences?" Tim asks.

"Guys..." I say and everyone turns to me. "Who put them all inside the fence?" I ask and we all turn back to the walkers.

"What if there's something out there more dangerous than zombies?" Kyla asks.

"Like what?" Angel asks from beside me.

"I don't think this is a conversation we should be having 200 yards from a million zombies guys." Ashley says.

"Ashley's right. Let's head back down to the vehicles." Tim tells the group and everyone starts to slowly climb down the hill. I turn and take another look at the building that should have been our safe haven.

We'll never find a safe place.

–

Maybe we should try to head north or something." Aiden says as everyone continues to discuss what the group should do. I decided to lay in the van, my gun shot is hurting pretty bad now.

"Are you okay?" Angel asks as she gets into the van.

"Yeah, I'm just tired of running." I tell her closing my eyes.

"Yeah, I know the feeling. My group has never stayed in once place for more than a few hours."

"That sounds... exhausting." I say sitting up and looking at her.

"Yeah at first, but we've grown used to it." She shrugs.

"Are you related to anyone else in your group?" I ask and she nods.

"My aunt and little brother are the two over there." She tells me, pointing to an older lady and little boy.

"Where's your mom?" I ask.

"She died when I was little."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Nah." She waves me off, shaking her head. "I'm glad she didn't have to go through any of this. What about you? I know Ashley is your girlfriend, she made that abundantly clear last night. I think she told me like seven times." She says and we both giggle a bit.

"My mom, dad and brother are the blondes of the group." I say and she chuckles.

"Ahh... I should have guessed. You all look so much alike."

"We're gonna scavenge and camp in Atlanta tonight." Ashley says coming to the van. She gives Angel a look that I can't read before Angel mumbles a 'see you later' to me and gets out the van.

"Okay." I nod.

"Are you feeling better?" She asks examining my wound.

"Ashley." I say, sitting up. A smile playing at my lips.

"Hmm?" She asks absent-mindedly, her eyes fixed on my wound.

"Are you marking your territory with me because of Angel?" I ask smiling.

"What, no?" She says looking in my eyes. I can tell she's lying.

"You're lying." I counter.

"Wouldn't you like that?" She retorts and smiles.

"She told me that you told her I was your girlfriend." I say.

"Well you are my girlfriend."

"Why is it any of her business?" I ask.

"Spencer are you trying to start something?" She ask raising a brow.

"Are you?" I retort.

"You're crazy. And I love you." She says bending down and kissing me. "We're gonna head out soon. You should get some rest."

"I'm tired of resting." I whine.

"But you admit you're tired right?" Ashley asks with a smile.

"Don't be a smart ass." I tell her as I pull her down into a kiss.

"Sorry." She mumbles into my lips.

"Where are we camping?" I ask.

"Somewhere far away from this place." She says glancing up the hill.

"Everyone load up. We're going to look for camp." Tim tells the group.

"I'm gonna go talk to Tim for a second I'll be right back." Ashley tells me, kissing me again before leaving.

I sigh and throw my head back down on the seat.

Now that we've lost Atlanta...

Where do we go from here?


	29. In God's Hands

"_Do you miss her_?" _Glen asks as we sit huddled up in the corner of the cabin, waiting for our parents to return._

"_Yeah." I reply softly._

"_I'm sorry you lost her, Spence." He says and pulls me tighter to him. "I know that you loved her a lot." He adds, placing a kiss on top of my head._

"_Maybe she's in a better place now." I turn and look at my brother._

"_You mean like with, God?" He questions._

"_Yeah." I say and turn away. "You think God would still accept her the way she died... you know...like one of them?" I ask._

"_I'm sure God knows about the person she was before she changed. He'll accept her for that." He assures me._

"_You promise?" I turn and ask._

"_Yeah." He nods as a smile appears at his lips. "She'll be waiting in heaven for you." _

–

"Why did your parent's let you come with us again?" Ashley asks as we walk the streets of Atlanta, looking for good places to scavenge. We decided to set up camp at an abandoned warehouse. It was spacious and we could light a fire inside and the walkers won't see the smoke from the Gwinnett Center.

"Because I begged." I say and smile.

"You're wounded though." She says lifting my shirt to look at my bandage.

"I'm perfectly safe with you here." I say cutely and kiss her cheek.

"So true." She smiles and kisses my nose.

"Would you two stop being cute and catch up." Glen says as him and Aiden prepare to enter a store. Tim, my dad, and Carmen went in the opposite direction of us to cover more ground. They stressed how important it is that we stay alert even though every single walker in the city seems to be behind those gates at the Gwinnett Center.

"You used to be cool big bro." I say to Glen with a smile as we reach them.

He gasps and puts a hand up to his mouth, "I'm offended." He says smiling.

"Well." I shrug and Ashley giggles.

"We ready?" Aiden asks turning back to us as he places his hand on the door to the grocery store.

"Yup." We say in unison.

"Let's grab as much stuff as we can carry back and then we'll-"

"Yeah, we got it Aiden." Ashley says cutting him off.

"Well someone's sna-"

"Are you trying to die today?" Glen asks his boyfriend.

"I was just-"

"Un uh." Glen shakes his head.

"But I was just-"

"Nope."Glen shakes his head again.

"But she's-"

"Not a chance, babe." He shakes his head once again.

"Ew." I say and cringe at Glen's nickname for Aiden.

"Let's just do this." Ashley chuckles and shakes her head. Aiden rolls his eyes and opens the door to the store. "Remember, stay alert." She tells everyone as we prepare to go in the store. We all lift our guns and slowly enter. Looking from left to right to make sure there are no zombies. "Spencer and I will go right and-"

"Yeah, yeah. We know the drill." Aiden cuts her of.

"You have a death wish don't you?" Glen asks him as the walk off out of sight.

"You're gonna give that poor boy a heart attack." I tell her as we search the isles on the right.

"He's knows I'm just kidding with him." She says with a smile as she grabs a few things off the shelf and stuffs them into her bag.

"But you're very intimidating, Ms. Davies." I say in a low very.

Yup, I intended it to be sexy but it came out sooooo totally wrong.

"Did you just try to do the Barry White voice on me?" She asks, barely able to get in her laughter.

"No." I shake my head and turn away, pretending to see something interesting on the shelf.

"Aww you did." Ashley says spinning me back around to face her. "And it was very cute." She adds with a smile and kisses me. Just as our lips touch we hear a deep scream. Follow by Ashley's named being called and more screaming. We race towards the howls and find Aiden and Glen on the floor next to two dead walkers. From the looks of it they came from the storage room.

"What happened?" We ask once we reach them.

"Aiden got bit! It bit him!" Glen sobs out as he holds his boyfriends bleeding arm.

"Aiden." Ashley drops down to his side and looks at the bite.

"I'm sorry, Aiden." Glen says through tears. "We were about to check back there when I pulled him away for a kiss, this is all my fault." He shakes his head and says to me.

"No." I kneel next to my brother and say. "It's not your fault, Glen." I try to assure him but he's too hysterical to listen to me right now.

"Glen, I need you to do something for me." Ashley says suddenly, turning her attention back to Glen who's still bawling. "Glen!" She shouts and it gets him to calm down a bit. "I need you to do something for me, can you calm down enough to do it?" She asks him and he wipes his face and nods. "Okay, I need you to run to the first-aid section and grab me some alcohol, tape, any type of needle you can find, a syringe, gloves and some gauze. Can you do that?" She asks him and he nods before standing up and running off.

"Ashley you know nothing can stop what's coming." I tell her. I've seen it first hand. With Lindsey...I've seen what happens when someone gets bit. "We need to shoot him." I lean over and whisper to her.

"No!" Aiden shouts. "Please." He begs, shaking his head.

"Aiden there's nothing we can-"

"Just let me try something." Ashley cuts me off, looking straight into my eyes.

"Ashley there's nothing you can-"

"Please, just let me try this." She says, begging me with her eyes to trust her.

"Okay." I nod as Glen comes back with the items she's asked for. "I couldn't find a syringe."

"It's okay, I have some in my bag. Spencer hand me that." She points to her bag and I give it to her. "Glen go grab a bottle of the strongest liquor you can find." She says and he nods and runs off again. "Spence, give me your belt." She tells me as she opens the pack of gauze with her teeth. I quickly remove my belt and hand it to her as Glen comes back with a bottle of whiskey.

"Will this work?" He asks, handing it to Ashley.

"Yeah." She nods and takes the bottle from him. Opening it quickly. Pouring some on the gauze and drinking some. She takes the alcohol soaked gauze and places it over Aiden's bite. He screams out in pain and Glen grabs his hand for comfort.

I feel so bad for Glen. He's finally found someone...someone that makes him happy and he's going to lose him and there's nothing we can do to change that.

"It's hurting him." Glen says to Ashley.

"Aiden I'm sorry but I gotta do this." She looks down at her friend and says. He nods as he tries to fight back tears. He glances at Glen with a sorrowful look on his face, like he knows this is the end as well.

Ashley takes her knife out of her pocket and pours the whiskey all over it before removing the gauze from Aidens bite and cutting straight down the middle of it.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Aiden cries out.

"What are you doing?" Glen questions her but she continues to work.

She puts on a pair of gloves and then ties my belt around her arm, right above the elbow. She pours the rubbing alcohol all over her arm before pulling a syringe from her backpack, she attaches a needle to it and places the syringe between her teeth. She slaps her arm a few times to make a vein visible then sticks the needle into her arm and draws blood.

"Ashley what is this gonna do?" I question but she doesn't answer me either. She takes the same syringe and sticks it in Aiden's arm where she made the cut. She pushes down on it and makes all her blood go into his arm.

"What the hell?" Glen questions, still a bit hysterical.

"Everyone back up." She tells us, holding her arm up, blocking us from Aiden.

"Ashley will you please just tell me what's going on?" I ask and she looks at me briefly before turning back to Aiden.

"If he turns then it didn't work. We need to back up in case he does."

"I'm not leaving his side." Glen shouts.

"If what works? Ashley what the hell is going on?" I ask again but she still doesn't answer me.

"Glen you need to move back, if he changes he'll bite you." She says, trying to lift Glen off the ground.

"I'm not leaving him!" Glen tells her. Grabbing a hold of Aiden's hand again.

"Spencer." She turns back to me and pleads for me to help her. I really want to know what the hell is going on, but right now my brother is first priority.

"Glen come on, Ashley's right. We need to move back, just in case." I tell him, trying to lift him up from the ground. Aiden is passed out now and at any moment he could wake up and become one of them.

"I can't, baby sis." Glen turns to me and says as he sobs. "I love him." He adds and drops his head on my shoulders.

"I know." I tell him as I pull him away from Aiden's body. "I know."

–

"It doesn't normally take this long." I say as we wait for Aiden to wake up...to become one of them.

"You've seen it?" Ashley asks me. We're sitting a few feet away from his body. Glen has fallen asleep on my lap. All the crying... this was all just too much for him. Ashley's keeping her eyes on Aiden.

"Yeah." I turn to her and say. She glances at me for a second, I'm guessing to make sure I'm okay. "Lindsey. She um...she changed right in front of me." I get out and her head snaps to me again. This time she holds my gaze.

"I'm sorry." She shakes her head.

"Don't be." I turn away and glance back down at my sleeping brother who is still quietly sobbing even in sleep. "Ashley why do you think that your blood will help him not change?" I ask softly.

"Ugh." We hear in Aiden's direction and Ashley shoots up. I gently lift Glen's head off my legs and replace myself with my backpack. I grimace when I feel a searing pain in my abdomen. I lift my shirt and see a bit of blood seeping through my gauze. I must have torn a stitch in all this commotion.

"Is he dead?" I ask as Ashley and I both move closer to him.

"I don't know." She says pointing a gun at him. "Aiden?" She calls to him and his head shoots in her direction. He sits up a bit and when I'm able to see his face I know...

He's not one of them.

He looks...normal.

"Ashley?" He questions as she quickly moves to his side.

"Aiden..." She breathes a sigh of relief and hugs him.

Her blood cured him. He didn't change into one them. How can this... this isn't possible...

Ouch...I look down at my stomach and see more blood coming through.

"Ashley?" I call out, she turns and looks at me before the blackness takes over and I hit the floor.


	30. The Truth Shall Set You Free

Hey everyone. I have really been enjoying your comments on the previous chapters. You guys are awesome. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Tell me what you think. :)

* * *

"_It has been confirmed that the X virus has killed Trinity Flares. There are no other details at this time. We ask everyone not to panic as the center for disease control are sure they have contained this virus and there will not be an outbreak." The newscaster tells us. My family and I are all sitting around the T.V as I'm sure every other family is doing at this moment. We've been following this story since the day it broke. Some mysterious virus that causes fever and shortly afterwards the death of the host. _

"_What does this mean for us dad?" I turn to my father and asks._

"_You heard the woman. There is no chance for an outbreak, the virus was contained. So it means nothing for us. We should go on about our lives." He tells my brother, mother and I._

"_Does that mean we still have to go to school tomorrow?" Glen groans._

"_Of course." My dad chuckles at my brother and gets up from the couch, turning off the T.V._

"_I'm going to get dinner started." My mother says following behind my father._

"_You think those government bastards are covering something up?" I ask my brother as he grabs the remote off the table and turns the T.V back on to basketball._

"_I don't know." He shrugs. "Why would they lie to us?" He turns and asks._

"_Why wouldn't they?" I counter and he smiles._

"_Anyone ever told you that your brain has trust issues?" He asks with a smile and I giggle._

"_Shut up." I punch him in the arm and stand up. "I'm gonna go call Lindsey and see what she thinks." I tell him as I step over his legs._

"_There's nothing to worry about, baby sis. The government says they have it under control then they have it under control." He yells after my retreating figure._

_Well I've never been one to trust the government._

–

"Spencer, Spencer wake up." I hear Ashley's voice call out to me. I open my eyes slowly and look up to her. I see her and Glen kneeling over me.

"What happened?" I question as I try to sit up but a searing pain in my stomach throws me back to the ground. I grimace.

"Don't move Spence, you tore your stitches again." Glen tells me.

"I need to get up." I say, trying to sit up again.

"No." Ashley gently pushes me back down. Aiden went to get Carmen." She adds and glances in the direction of the door.

"Aiden." I breathe out. Remembering the events that occurred right before I passed out. "You fixed him, your blood-"

"Shhh." Ashley says putting a finger to my lip, getting a look from Glen. "Glen maybe you should go see what's taking Aiden so long." She turns to Glen and says. He glances down at me asking me with his eyes if that's okay. I nod and he gets up and walks off.

"Ashley what's going on?" I question her as I try to sit up again. The pain is still there but not as noticeable as before. Ashley helps me scoot against the wall.

"This is what I've been trying to tell you." She says scooting back from me and positioning her self Indian-style.

"I don't understand." I say weakly. She swallows thickly and looks away from me. "Just tell me."

"I don't even know where to begin." She turns back to me and says.

"From the beginning would be nice." I let out a weak laugh but clear my throat and turn my attention back to her.

"Everything you've been told has been a lie." She says after a moment. Looking me straight in my eyes.

"From you?" I question.

"No." She shakes her head and moves closer to me. "Well...somewhat I guess."

"Ashley, please just tell me."

"The outbreak..." She starts, clearing her throat. "I know... I know how it happened." She admits finally and my eyes go wide at her revelation. "Spencer say something please." She begs me, trying to grab my hand but I pull it away.

"What do you mean you know what happened?" I ask, my voice more abrasive than I intended. "More than what the government told us?"

"What the government told you was a lie." She says and I can't help but gasp. How would she know that?

"Ashley stop being vague and tell me what the hell you're talking about."

"There was no Trinity Flares." She shakes her head. "That was a cover up story. The government never even knew what hit them until after it'd spread throughout the north, mostly Canada and the Northern states."

"They said that Trinity was the first and only person to-"

"Well that was obviously a lie, look around." She says gesturing around us.

"Why would they lie?" I ask.

"To cover up the truth."

"Which is?"

"That the government does experiments on people, experiments that often have dire consequences." She says. Could she be any more vague right now? I'm not in the mood nor patient enough for this.

"Tell me what you know right now Ashley." I say through gritted teeth. I'm tired of the games and the run around.

"My mom worked for the CDC, you know that... she... they... the CDC were working on serum." She stops and looks at me.

"A serum for what?"

"They were trying to optimize human capabilities."

"What?"

"They were working on a serum that could make...um super humans."

"Ashley I don't understand what you're telling me."

"The department of the CIA my dad worked for is wasn't a normal department." She says, doing air quotes.

"What did he do?"

"He was lab rat mostly...they tested all these different serums and drugs on him and a bunch of other people. Some volunteers, others were government officials."

"For what?"

"To make them, faster, stronger, smarter. The ideal CIA agent."

"What went wrong?"

"The people, they started dying." She shakes her head and looks as though she's in thought. "All except for two." She adds after a moment.

"Who?"

"My dad...and myself." She says and I gasp with wide eyes. "My mom was just a pawn in all this. She didn't know exactly what was going on. She created the serum. After everyone started dying, they shut down that part of the CIA and my family was sworn to secrecy. They wanted to run some test on us, to see why my father and I survived but no one else did. But they needed a cover story first. The people that volunteered... they died. Some of them had families and some didn't. They made up the Trinity Flares story so that when people noticed their loved ones were gone they'd blame the X virus." She shrugs and sits back. I don't know what to say. Everything she's saying is too much for me right now. But I wanted the truth so now I'm getting it.

"But the news said it was contained."

"The news can say whatever they want. It doesn't mean that people won't make things up in their heads and start panicking."

"That doesn't explain how the outbreak started." I say and she looks up at me.

"The dead people, their bodies weren't disposed of properly and the everyone who came into contact with them got sick. First it started with a fever, then they just got really sick and then death...but they didn't stay dead." She stops and I can see the tears building in her eyes. "My dad was..." She pauses and wipes the tears away. "...the serum killed him too." She finally gets out.

"But I thought you said-"

"That's what we thought because he didn't die when the others did." She nods. "But it killed him and when he came back from the dead I had to shoot him. But not before he infected my mother. And as she got sicker and sicker she told me that I was the key to everything. That I could fix all of this, but I had no idea what she was talking about." She shakes her head and shrugs.

"Until now." I clarify.

"My blood is the cure. I could've saved so many lives. Maybe I could've saved my parent's, your girlfriend." She continues to shake her head as the tears fall freely.

"You didn't know Ashley." I say moving closer to her, putting an arm on her back.

"I should've known. I have all these... abilities. I can do all these things but I couldn't..." She pauses and shakes her head. "I couldn't figure out what my mom meant. I couldn't understand." She drops her head. "This is all my-"

"Don't you dare blame yourself for all this. This isn't your fault Ashley. You didn't make your mom create that serum."

"But if I had just-"

"No." I shake my head and lift her face to look at me. "There was nothing you could do then...but there is something you can do now." I say and she gives me a puzzled look.

"You're the cure Ashley. Your blood is the cure and we can save everyone. Maybe even the already infected people. Maybe your blood can change them back." I say and she sits up straight.

"You think?" She asks.

"I don't know." I shrug. "But it's worth a shot isn't it?"

"All those people at the Gwinnett Center. If we could just find a way to mass produce the cure then we could give it to all of them." She says wiping her face of the tears.

"Spencer!" I hear Carmen shout my name and come from around an isle. She sees the blood coming through my shirt and runs over to me. Ashley steps back and lets her work. "I told you to be careful." She says kneeling down beside me. "Ashley can you go find me some gauze and rubbing alcohol please." She turns to Ashley and asks.

"We actually have some right here." Ashley says grabbing what was left of the supplies Glen had brought her earlier. Carmen looked at the blood on the floor and the blood covered gauze and then back at Ashley.

"What happened here?" She asks and Ashley and I share a look, she's telling me with her eyes that she's not sure if we should tell everyone. I'm telling her that they need to know.

"There's something I need everyone to hear." Ashley says never taking her eyes off me. Carmen glances back at me before shaking her head and going back to fixing me up. When she's done they help me up, gathering up all the bags of scavenged goods and we head back to camp with Aiden and Glen.

"I'm scared that they won't take this as well as you." Ashley whispers to me as Carmen gathers up everyone.

"Ashley is this about what happened at the store?" Glen asks and Ashley nods. "The way you saved Aiden with your blood?" He questions and she nods again. "Well I don't care if you're some kind of alien or something, you saved Aiden and I could never repay you for that." Glen says then wraps Ashley up in a tight hug.

"You're welcome, Glen." Ashley says once Glen pulls back. He nods once then joins Aiden and the rest of the group in front me and Ashley. They've all gathered to hear her news.

"What's this about Ashley, is everything okay?" Tim asks.

"Uh...yeah." Ashley nods. "I just have something I need to tell everyone." She says then clears her throat. She tells everyone the same story she told me. Pretty much word for word, like she'd rehearsed it in her head a few times. I can tell that this is something she's wanted to tell someone...anyone for a very long time. Even Kyla looked surprised when Ashley delivered the news. How did she not know what was going on right under her nose?

"So you weren't a student?" Tim asks and I can see a smile playing at his lips.

"Not exactly, no." Ashley shakes her head.

"That explains so much." Tim says shaking his head and chuckling a bit.

"What does all this information mean? Are we supposed to inject ourselves with your blood to be safe from zombie bites or...?" My mom asks.

"I don't know how it works exactly. Aiden was bitten but I cleaned the wound then injected him with my blood and it kept him from turning. That's all I know."

"Well can people who have already been changed be cured?"

"I don't know." Ashley shrugs.

"What do you know?" Someone from the outcast group asks in a harsh tone.

"I know that you should speak only when spoken to." I throw out.

"Spencer!" My dad scolds me.

"Well." I shrug. They were being rude to my girlfriend.

"If I could get into some sort of lab I do some test. On myself...on Aiden...figure some things out. Maybe even mass produce a cure but we'd need a really big lab."

"The center for disease control is here." Jackie says.

"My mom worked in a lab in Vegas. They already have most of the test and things they did on me and the rest of the subjects on file, if we could get there, I could-"

"Wait, you're suggesting we go back to Vegas? Back into that chaos?" Owen asks.

"If it's our only option at finding a cure then we should." Tim says. "Think of how many lives we could save." He adds.

"We're risking our own though."

"Not as long as Ashley is around. Her bloods the cure. If one of use get bitten then we just-"

"She can't save us from becoming dinner though."

"Owen's right." My dad says. "It's dangerous. We've had too many close calls already."

"Yeah, like Spencer getting bit in the woods." Glen nods and then his eyes widen and he clasps his hands over his mouth.

"What!?" My mom, dad, Ashley, Carmen, Tim, Jo and Jayden all say at once. Having six parent's and a girlfriend is so hard.

"Thanks a lot, Glen." I turn to him and roll my eyes. "I didn't get bit. I was attacked but I had protection on my arms so it didn't actually bite me." I tell everyone but they don't look relieved.

"Why didn't you tell us?" My dad asks.

"Because it was no big deal." I shake my head.

"It's a very big deal, Spence." Ashley says.

"Right. Back to the topic at hand. Are we going back to Vegas or what?" I ask trying to change the subject and luckily it works.

"I think Atlanta is a fine place to be." Owen says. "There are plenty or stores and we know exactly where all the walkers are."

"Yeah except the two that attacked Glen and Aiden." I say. "There will never be a completely safe place for us to be until we figure out how to cure everyone."

"Why don't we just let everyone decide for themselves?" Leo suggests.

"You mean split the group up?" Tim asks.

"If people want to go their own way, that's their right honey." Jo tells her husband.

"Okay." Tim nods. "My family is going though. If there is a chance at a cure then I'm gonna take it." He says looking around at the rest of the group as he wraps his arms around his son and wife.

"We're going too." Carmen says.

"And us." My dad chimes in.

"We're going." Angel says, standing up with her aunt and little brother.

"Angel honey, I don't want to put your brother through this anymore. All this moving and running, he needs some stability."

"But this could be what we've been waiting for auntie Maggie. A vaccine, we wouldn't have to worry anymore."

"Your brother and I won't go." She shakes her head.

"But-"

"No." She tells her niece. Angel looks at her aunt with sadness before stepping closer to our group.

"I'm going." She tells her aunt firmly.

Her aunt smiles a small smile before saying, "I know."

"I don't wanna just leave you and Tommy here."

"We'll be fine." Maggie assures her.

"Is that everyone that's going?" Tim asks the group. Everyone nods. "Okay." He says. "We'll head out at the end of the week. Gives us enough time to siphon gas and gather up all the supplies we'll need for this trip. For those of you not joining... please stay safe until our return, hopefully with an answer and a cure." He finishes and everyone disperses and goes back to what they were doing before Carmen gathered them up.

"Do you think we'll be able to pull this off?" Ashley turns to me and asks.

"You're some kinda super-duper human that can climb trees faster than I can blink and shot an arrow with your eyes closed, Ashley." I smile. "You can do anything."

"I love you." She whispers before leaning in and kissing my lips.

"I love you too." I mumble into the kiss.

"Spencer, Ashley! Stop making out and come help us set up these tents." Glen yells to us. We both giggle before hoping off the table we were sitting on.

We don't know what's gonna happen in the future or if Ashley will even be able to make a vaccine, but we're gonna sure as hell do everything we can to try.

We're gonna save the human population from extinction.

One Zombie at a time...

_The End of Part 1._


	31. When You Thought It Was Over :)

Well Hello Lovely People. I just wanted to answer a few questions and also let you guys know that Part Two The Apocalypse: Race For The Cure will be up by mid to late next next so I'm not gonna make you guys wait too long for that I promise. I'm really glad that everyone enjoyed the first part. It was definitely a blast to write. Okay, to answer some questions now...

Question 1: No none of you are going crazy. I didn't want to put the full title up because I didn't want anyone to know about the sequel, I wanted that to be a big surprise at the end of the story and I know that it was right? lol Everyone who thought you were going crazy... it's okay, you're not (shakes head) calm down it's allllllllright. You don't need your crazy pills just yet lol.

Question 2: The Sequel will be pretty much all about trying to find the cure hence the new title. I hope that I do it justice. I have all these ideas of where I wanna go in my head but I'm not sure how I'll bring them all together yet.

Question 3: I guess this isn't really a question but...Ashley and the gang aren't entirely sure how they're mass produce this cure yet, or if they can even manufacture one from Ashley's blood. All those details will be revealed within the story though.

I am definitely excited because this will be different than part one. Something that everyone has been asking for will finally happen. :)

So be on the look out for it next week and I hope you all continue to read and comment on the new one. And show as much support for that one as you did for this one! AMAZING YOU GUYS ARE! #inmyyodavoice

P.S Annais81: The comment you made about me being an awesome person in real life because my stories are so awesome...I'm paraphrasing here... lol...anyways it make me smile from ear to ear and I'm pretty sure I may have even turned a bit red lol. Thank you! My girlfriend is lucky, but then again...so am I.


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